MOSCOW, August 04. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian scientists hope that sanctions imposed on the country over the crisis in Ukraine will fail to affect space projects, particularly a Russian major space observatory, the director of the Astro Space Centre at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Lebedev Physics Institute told reporters at a Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) scientific assembly under way in Moscow on Monday.

A Russian space observatory with a millimetre-range telescope for astrophysical research is named project Millimetron.

“Still, everything is OK. This month our specialists will go to Japan to discuss it [delivery of foreign component parts] in detail,” chief of the RAS Physics Institute’s centre Nikolai Kardashev said.

If Western sanctions have an impact on scientific co-operation Russian science and industry can produce domestic component parts, he said.

“No prepared decision exists, but several plants which would be able to launch its development operate,” Kardashev said.

However, if this order is transferred to Russian suppliers a space observation mission will be delayed. Now Millimetron space observatory is planned to launch in 2020.

Lavochkin design bureau is developing a satellite platform.