Russia is evacuating a village that may be hit by falling rocket debris as it prepares for its first moon landing in almost 50 years

A Soyuz-2.1b rocket booster on a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia.

ROSCOSMOS via Reuters

• On Friday, Russia returns to lunar exploration with its first expected moon landing since 1976.
• But one village in Russia's Far East, which could be hit by falling rocket debris, is being evacuated.
• Residents will go to a designated spot for a complimentary breakfast to wait and witness the launch.

Russia is evacuating residents of a village in its Far East due to concerns that fragments of the rocket boosters used to launch the country's first lunar lander since 1976 could potentially fall on it, according to a local official.

The residents of Shakhtinsky, a tiny village of around 27 people in Russia's Khabarovsk region, will be evacuated at around 7.30 a.m. on Friday, Alexei Maslov, the head of the Khabarovsk region's Verkhnebureinskyi district, said in a Telegram post on Monday.

The village falls within the potential impact zone of the launch, making the evacuation necessary, he added.

After a hiatus of nearly 50 years, Russia will launch its first lunar landing spacecraft on Friday. 

It will be the country's first post-Soviet moon landing mission and, if successful, the first research station to land on the moon's south pole.

The Luna-25 lunar lander is scheduled to launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, approximately 3,400 miles east of Moscow. The launch center is about 460 miles west of the village of Shakhtinsky.

A map of Russia's Far East shows the Vostochny Cosmodrome and village of Shakhtinsky.

Google Maps, Insider

Maslov also highlighted the potential danger of falling fragments in a Telegram post on August 2, describing the risk of injury to people nearby and likening the sound of fragments hitting the ground to "thunder." 

In the same post, he asked tourists, vacationers, fishermen, and hunters in the potential fall zone to leave the area and refrain from visiting between August 11 and August 13.

According to Reuters, Maslov told Russian news outlet Business FM that the villagers will be taken to a spot where they will be able to watch the launch and get a free breakfast. They will be able to return to their homes within three-and-a-half hours, he added, per Reuters.

The launch will mark the first time a Soyuz-2 Fregar rocket booster is used for a lunar mission, which adds to what Yuri Borisov, head of Roscosmos, described in June as a high-risk mission, per Agence France-Press. 

Borisov estimated that it only has a 70% chance of success, AFP reported.

The launch puts Russia in direct competition with India, which is competing to get to the moon's south pole first, with its Chandrayaan-3 mission scheduled to land later this month.

Scientists believe the south pole of the moon contains a lot of water ice, which astronauts could potentially mine for rocket fuel.

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