MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. The United States may be excluded from the Venera-D joint project with Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Agency due to the US sanctions affecting the Russian space industry, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin told TASS on Saturday.

"The United States’ participation in the project is impossible due to the sanctions," he said.

According to the Roscosmos chief, Russia will carry out the mission alone or with China’s participation. Rogozin added that he had handed down instructions on Friday to launch talks with Beijing on mutual technical assistance for all space research missions.

Rogozin said earlier that US sanctions had made it impossible to implement joint projects such as the Spektr-RG observatory.

US President Joe Biden stated on February 25 that sanctions imposed by Washington and its allies would degrade Russia’s high-tech sector, including its space program. According to him, the US would block more than half of high-tech exports to Russia. The Roscosmos CEO, in turn, pointed out that Russia would launch domestic production of the necessary components and devices in order to continue to manufacture spacecraft.

In mid-May 2020, Scientific Director of the Russian Space Research Institute Lev Zeleny said that Russia would develop a new Venus exploration program, which would include the launch of at least three research vehicles. According to the scientist, Venera-D, scheduled to be launched in the late 2020s, is going to be the first mission within the project. The previous comprehensive Venus exploration program was implemented in the Soviet Union.