Russia still flies to the Moon and builds lunar base, despite rumors

On December 29, it was reported that Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, was forced to alter the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025. As a result, the new program does not contain almost all of the previously planned manned flights to the Moon.

Photo: AP photo

According to the Izvestia newspaper, the program was changed because of space budget cuts.

The Russian State Corporation for Space Activities decided to abandon the plans for building a lunar base. The lunar runway complex and the lunar space station will not be built either. Despite all the changes, Roscosmos has kept the project of a spacecraft that Russia plans to send to the Moon.

The agency will thus be able to save 88.5 billion rubles. The spacecraft, the name of which is being chosen now, will cost Roscosmos 58.22 billion rubles.

Also read: Healthy diet of Russian cosmonauts ruins NASA's space toilets

Later, however, the head of the press service of the Russian Space Agency, Mikhail Fadeyev, said in an interview with "Govorit Moskva" radio station that the earlier reported information was not true to fact.

"Roscosmos has not refused from manned spaceflights to the Moon. The program for 2016-2025 stipulates for the exploration of the Moon with the use of automatic complexes. The program also  provides for the creation of the scientific and technical basis for manned missions to the satellite of the Earth," he said.

In April 2014, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who supervises the space industry, said that Russia would build permanent infrastructure on the Moon. According to the previously announced program, Russian cosmonauts are to land on the Moon in 2028-2030. A permanently inhabited settlement on the Moon is to be created by the middle of the current century in the area of the south pole of the natural satellite of the Earth.

Pravda.Ru

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