MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. The United States underestimates the Russian space industry’s potential, Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Dmitry Rogozin said on Tuesday.
"It seems that US colleagues have underestimated our technical potential and will," Rogozin wrote on his Facebook.
The same situation was 8-10 years ago when the United States underestimated Russia’s potential and will for recovering the defense industry and rearming the Russian troops within the shortest time possible, the Roscosmos chief pointed out.
Roscosmos has numerously offered equitable terms of cooperation for US colleagues under the Gateway lunar station program but has not received any answer, Rogozin stressed.
"But in any case, it is necessary to discuss uniform technical standards for the possibility of docking our Oryol spacecraft to the Gateway. This may be necessary," he said.
The Roscosmos chief said at the 71st International Astronautical Congress held via a video conference in October 2020 that Russia would skip large-scale participation in the US Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (formerly, Deep Space Gateway) project of creating a lunar orbiter. In its current form, the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project was 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 numerously stated that the Russian space agency was ready to participate in the international Lunar Orbital Gateway project only on an equal footing with NASA.