MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. A special directorate in charge of future lunar missions has been created at the Russian space corporation Roscosmos, the corporation’s CEO, Dmitry Rogozin, said in a special message of New Year greetings to Russia’s cosmonauts.

"Roscosmos has created a special directorate, of which I am in charge myself, to be well up on all the nuances and elements of preparations for lunar missions. This sets new tasks to and opens up new prospects in front of crewed space flights," Rogozin said in a video message uploaded to the Roscosmos website on Thursday.

Rogozin recalled that Russia’s automatic space probe Luna-25 would leave the Vostochny spaceport for the Moon in 2021.

"We are beginning to explore the Moon’s South Pole with automatic space probes. In the longer term, we will make preparations for crewed space missions," he said.

In the last days of the outgoing year a decision was made to create a special unified program for lunar research, Rogozin stressed. He said that preparations for deep space missions were being made by foreign partners, too.

In June 2019, Russia’s research institute TsNIImash presented its concept of the Russian lunar research program at the Le Bourget air show. The presentation said a space crew might set foot on the Moon in 2030 to stage experiments on the surface and conduct applied research. Automatic space probes will be operational on the Moon’s surface at that moment.

After that regular missions to the Moon and the deployment of a permanent lunar base might follow. The main phase is scheduled for 2032-2035. Regular missions will deploy relay transmitters, power generation modules and robotized systems on the Moon’s surface.