News / Brèves Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente Russia’s Space Science Head Outlines Ambitious Future Space Plans 3 August 2014 (LPAC)—Speaking in Moscow today at the 40th Science Assembly of the highly-respected international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), Lev Zeleny, Director of Russia’s Space Research Institute, presented a wide-ranging and ambitious plan for Russian space exploration and space science over the next two decades. The Space Research Institute is responsible for formulating and supervising Russia’s space science and planetary missions. "The Moon and Mars are our priority for 2016-2025," he said. Russia will resume exploration of the Moon in 2019 with the unmanned Luna-Glob orbital mission, Zeleny said. This will be followed by Luna-Resource satellite, with a lander. For the more difficult exploration of Mars (after having suffered the failure of nearly all of its Mars missions), Russia is partnering with the European Space Agency for the challenging multi-spacecraft ExoMars missions. Russia will launch the first craft in 2016, but Europe has just postponed the more complex 2018 mission to 2020, which will also have participation from Russia. Referring to its own Phobos Grunt Mars mission, which failed on launch two years ago, Zeleny said Russia may repeat it—to land on the Martian satellite, collect soil, and return it to Earth—after thoroughly testing new technologies. Russia is also significantly upgrading its activity in space science. Roscosmos, he said, is planning to join Europe and Japan in the Bepi-Colombo mission to Mercury, will orbit the Spektre-RG science satellite in 2017, and launch an ultraviolet observatory in 2020. Substantial increases in Russia’s budget reflect the priority space exploration is being given for the future. Marsha Freeman