Space research and space exploration in recent decades have been at an unsatisfactory level, and active work in this direction is required. This was announced on Wednesday, April 21, by the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Alexander Sergeev during a general meeting of members of the RAS.
“In recent decades, we are generally not very satisfied with the way we are doing in the development and exploration of space. Of course, this is primarily due to the fact that there are economic difficulties and the fact that the country is working [по сравнению с временами СССР] in completely different socio-economic conditions. But we are making every effort to ensure that our federal space program develops, ”TASS quoted him as saying.
Sergeev recalled that in 2016 the federal space program was adopted, which will operate until 2025. This program provides for the implementation of projects related to the scientific study of space. RAS and Roscosmos are now actively working to maintain funding for this program and be able to implement new serious projects, added the president of the academy.
“The experiments that we are conducting, we want to carry out and prove that they are needed, necessarily require the development of technology, new means of launching, and delivery. All this is very expensive. Therefore, we have to find such solutions so that we, from the side of space science, initiate very important projects, and the space industry finds the opportunity to implement them with its own means, ”Sergeev emphasized, also noting that at the moment the Russian Academy of Sciences is planning a number of new projects within the framework of the federal space program.
He also expressed hope for the development of scientific space through the creation of new vehicles (launch and delivery), in particular, to distant planets.
On April 19, the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin announced that Russia does not plan to cut the program of experiments in orbit of the Nauka module until the appearance of the national space station.
The day before, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov announced Moscow’s plans to withdraw from the ISS project from 2025 and start creating its own orbital station.
On the same day, the press service of Roscosmos reported that the decision to continue work on the Russian segment of the International Space Station would be made after 2024.