Russia&CIS

Russia will start work in early 2021 to design ground infrastructure for launching cosmonauts from the Vostochny spaceport, Deputy CEO of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos for Capital Construction Yuri Roslyak told TASS on 15 July 2020.

Specialists of Roscosmos will take all measures to ensure a safe spacewalk for tourists and the Russian state space corporation is ready to provide these services, its head Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.

The late 2030s are the most probable time for a crewed spacecraft’s flight to Mars, Executive Director of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos for Manned Space Programs Sergei Krikalyov said on Friday.

In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Dr. Bleddyn E. Bowen, Lecturer in International Relations, Space Policy/Warfare Expert at University of Leicester talked about his new book War in Space: Strategy, Spacepower, Geopolitics

The heads of the space agencies from the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency (ESA) are scheduled to meet on 9 June 2020 via video conference in order to discuss cooperation on lunar exploration and the International Space Station (ISS).

In separate media appearances last week, Russian and Chinese diplomatic and military officials have criticised US – and allied – military space programmes and ambitions.

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, has said that Russia is designing a new “orbital” station where crews will build deep space probes to explore the Solar System.

Russia and China are currently in talks to pool their resources for joint lunar operations, according to several Russian and international news media sources.

The Russian state space corporation Roscosmos is to develop a low-Earth orbit (LEO) space surveillance satellite that will help monitor space debris and should be launched by 2027, according to a senior Roscosmos official in remarks to the TASS news agency on 28 May 2020.

Sputnix, a Russian privately-owned satellite component manufacturer, has signed a memorandum with Mitsui & Co. Moscow, the Russian subsidiary of Japanese company Mitsui & Co., on 25 May 2020.