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Russia to start construction of habitable lunar base after 2030

A flight to the Moon is set to take place by 2030, says official

© Yuri Smityuk/TASS

MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. The construction of Russia’s habitable lunar base is expected to begin after 2030, Executive Director for Manned Space Programs at the State Space Corporation Roscosmos Sergei Krikalyov said on Tuesday.

"A flight to the Moon is set to take place by 2030. After 2030, the deployment of this base should begin. At the beginning, it will, perhaps, be small and briefly visited and then it will grow larger and people will stay there," the Roscosmos official said in a video of the Roscosmos TV studio posted on the YouTube video hosting platform

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Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin earlier said that Russia’s lunar program mapped out until 2040 will be submitted to the Security Council of Russia for examination before the summer of this year. According to Rogozin, the lunar program has not yet been fully approved by the specialized ministries and departments because the Russian Academy of Sciences acts as its customer while Roscosmos is its general contractor.

In late 2018, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Council for Space Exploration accepted a concept of the country’s lunar program but gave instructions to supplement it. Roscosmos reported that the lunar program would be implemented in several stages through 2040. In turn, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Council for Space Exploration, Scientific Head of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences Lev Zelyony told TASS that the concept of the Russian lunar program was due to the submitted to the government for consideration before the summer of 2019.

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