MOSCOW, October 12. /TASS/. Russia will skip large-scale participation in the US Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (formerly, Deep Space Gateway) project of creating a lunar orbiter, State Space Corporation Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday.

"Most likely, we will refrain from large-scale participation in it [the lunar orbital platform project]. We are interested in an airlock to be created by our American colleagues for the docking of the advanced Oryol manned spacecraft [intended to be eventually used for lunar missions]," Rogozin said at the 71st International Astronautical Congress via a video link-up.

In its current form, the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project is mostly needed to address US tasks, Rogozin said.

The United States proposed the concept of the Deep Space Gateway (currently, Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway) as a transfer facility for missions to the Earth’s natural satellite and for deep space flights. In the spring of 2019, NASA also announced the Artemis project of developing a sustainable human presence on the Moon.

The Roscosmos chief earlier said in an interview with TASS that the Russian space agency was ready to participate in the international Lunar Orbital Gateway project only on an equal footing with NASA. Roscosmos also views the effort of creating a lunar orbital station on its own as quite a complex task, considering limited funding of space programs, he said.