MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. Russia will send a manned mission to the Moon after 2030 under the country’s far space exploration program, a deputy head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos told TASS on Wednesday. 

“The manned flight (to the Moon) will start from 2030, that’s why it is not included in the federal space program. But technologies that will be developed to perform it are in the federal program,” Denis Lyskov said at the Open Innovations Forum in Moscow.

The Russian federal space program, which envisages launching automatic stations to the Moon and Mars, covers the period of 2016 to 2025, while the program of the far space exploration is to be fulfilled later, Lyskov explained.

Speaking on extending the operations of the International Space Station (ISS) after 2020, Lyskov said it depends on the Russian lunar program. He said US colleagues said earlier they would like to extend the ISS operation deadline until 2024, but Roscosmos is not ready to announce its decision yet.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said earlier Russia sees no commercial reasons to participate in the ISS project after 2020 as Roscosmos spends over 30% of its annual budget on the project.