MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. Russia’s new draft Federal Space Program provides for a flight around the moon in the second half of the 2020s, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Igor Komarov told reporters on Thursday.
"The flight around the Moon with the use of heavy-class carrier rockets has been postponed from 2025, as previously planned, beyond the period covered by the program," he said, adding that the project would be implemented "in the second half of the next decade."
"The Moon program is the most important. It is planned to allocate 205.1 billion rubles for its implementation. Two large stages of implementing this program are planned. Five automatic Moon spacecraft are planned to be launched from 2019 to 2024 at the Luna-Avtomat stage," Komarov said
The draft Federal Space Program until 2025 also envisages allocating 28.1 billion rubles for Mars research, and 37.2 billion rubles for research in the framework of the Spektr projects, Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Thursday.
Russia proposes joint project with ESA on returning soil samples from Phobos in 2024
Russia proposes to implement jointly with the European Space Agency (ESA) the project of returning soil samples from Phobos in 2024, Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Igor Komarov told journalists on Thursday.
"We propose to implement jointly with ESA the project of returning soil samples from Phobos in the framework of the Boomerang project in 2024. In the future, a similar mission is planned to Mars," Komarov said.
The mission in the framework of the Boomerang project will become the second Russian expedition to Phobos. The first spacecraft, Fobos-Grunt, was lost in 2011. ESA earlier announced its plans to take part in the new mission. Talks on the matter were held at the MAKS Air Show 2015 that took place in August in the Moscow Region.
Draft Federal Space Program envisages launch of 150 spacecraft
The new draft Federal Space Program until 2025 envisages designing and launching 150 spacecraft for social-economic and scientific purposes, Russian Federal Space Agency's head went on to say.
"In the framework of the new draft Federal Space Program, it is planned to design and launch 150 spacecraft for social-economic and scientific purposes. The previous draft program envisaged launching 185 spacecraft," he said.
According to him, the draft Federal Space Program until 2025 includes projects and research of reusable rocket stages.
"The return and successful landing can be considered as a success," Komarov said commenting on the successful landing of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
"In our Federal Space Program, we also have projects and research devoted to reusable stages and the possibility of using reusable spacecraft," he added.
Those who developed the new draft Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 managed to keep all basic experiments and research when optimizing the budget, Roscosmos head noted.
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Submitting draft Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 postponed until next year
However, the draft Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 will not be submitted until the end of this year as planned before, Igor Komarov noted.
"We have to coordinate it with the Economic Development Ministry and Finance Ministry. I think that we will try to coordinate it until the end of this year so we can submit it to the government next year," Komarov said.
According to Roscosmos head, financing the Federal Space Program until 2025 will be restricted by 2016 indicators for the first three years.
"Additional restrictions were imposed, in particular freezing financing in the first three years of implementing the program at one level — at the 2016 level. It stands at 104.5 billion rubles. The total amount of financing until 2021 is set at 722.5 billion rubles," Komarov said.
In mid-December Roscosmos head Igor Komarov announced plans to submit the draft space program for 2016-2025 to the government until the end of the year. It was reported that around 1.4 trillion rubles will be allocated for the program while the draft law presented in spring envisaged 2 trillion rubles of financing. Additional 115 billion rubles may be allocated for projects that will be finally approved after 2021.