Moscow: Russia is planning to conduct its first manned mission to moon as early as in 2010 and set up a permanent lunar base for the extraction of rare minerals, a top space industry official said on Thursday.
"The Energia Rocket and Space Corporation plans to explore the moon in three stages: a Soyuz spacecraft flight to the Moon, the construction of a permanent base on the moon (from 2010 to 2025), and the industrial exploration of space around the Earth's satellite," President of the corporation Nikolai Sevastyanov said during the 5th Aerospace Congress that is currently underway.
Russia is planning to use a modernised version of the Soyuz manned spacecraft, the workhorse of the Russian space fleet, for the flights to the moon, Sevastyanov was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.
The first spacecraft would be ready by 2010, he added.
"Energia has started the development of a modernised Soyuz spacecraft," Sevastyanov further added.
Novosti Sevastyanov said that the Russian Space Agency and the European Space Agency have already expressed their support for the project and the first modernised Soyuz would be launched in 2010.
The Energia president said that the launches would be conducted both from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan and from the Kourou launch site in the French Guiana.
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