Moscow [Russia], April 13: Russian President Vladimir Putin has described a planned Russian space station as a necessary step toward realizing ambitions for a national lunar programme."As far as I understand, one of the functions of the Russian orbital station is, among other things, to prepare the realization of our plans on the moon," Putin said on Wednesday at a meeting with the head of the Roscosmos space agency, Yury Borisov, according to the Interfax news agency.The design for a Russian space station is supposed to be ready by this summer. The cost of building the station is estimated in Moscow at$7.3 billion. Russia's national space ambitions come amid massive tensions with Western countries over Russia's ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which was launched in February 2022.Moscow previously threatened to withdraw from the joint International Space Station (ISS), but Roscosmos announced in February that the
Russian module of the ISS should remain in operation until 2028.(DPA)
Source: Qatar Tribune