Otherwise, Russia will "fall out" of the three great space powers, the head of Roscosmos believes
MOSCOW, November 29. /tass/. Russia will "fall out" of the three great space powers if it does not implement the Venus-D project by 2030, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin said.
"Until 2030, we need to do [the project] in any case, otherwise we will fall out of the three great space powers," Rogozin said on Monday after the ceremony of awarding the Gagarin prizes of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of space activities for 2021.
According to the head of Roscosmos, if the United States refuses to participate in the project, Russia will still implement it, but in this case the device will have a different functionality. In addition, another foreign partner may be considered for implementation.
In mid-May 2020, the scientific director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lev Zeleny, told TASS that a new program for exploring Venus will be developed in Russia, including sending at least three scientific vehicles. According to the scientist, the first expedition under the program will be "Venus-D", the launch of which is scheduled for the end of the 2020s. The previous comprehensive Venus research program was implemented in the USSR.
Rogozin reported earlier that Russia plans, in addition to preparing a joint Venus-D mission with the United States, to send its own planet to the second planet from the Sun. At the same time, Roscosmos stressed that the state corporation does not refuse to cooperate with the United States on the Venus-D project, but only plans to refrain from broad international cooperation on this mission.
