Russia May Create Own Lunar Orbital Platform Project - Roscosmos

Russia will not participate in the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project with the United States in its current form and may create its own station, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said on Saturday.

KOROLEV (Moscow Region) (UrduPoint news / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) Russia will not participate in the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project with the United States in its current form and may create its own station, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said on Saturday.

"The Russian Federation cannot let itself participate [in the project] as a second fiddle," Rogozin said.

He added that Russia may develop its own lunar orbital project instead, possibly an international one.

"Whether it will be a Russian or an international station is subject to discussion," Rogozin said.

The Roscosmos head did not exclude that the United States could take part in the new Russian project, adding that BRICS association members � Brazil, India, China and South Africa � could partake in the station's development as well.

According to Rogozin, he would have a meeting with the administrator of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), James Bridenstine, to discuss Russia's position on the issue of lunar orbital bases.

The meeting is expected to take place at the Kazakhstan-based Baikonur cosmodrome during the preparations for the launch of a new crew toward the International Space Station (ISS), planned for October 11.

Rogozin's statement comes just a day after Roscosmos said that it would continue to participate in the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project, following the meeting of the ISS Exploration Capabilities Study Team in the United States on September 8-15.

Roscosmos and NASA, which proposed the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project, signed a memorandum on cooperation on the project in September 2017. Russia was offered to construct an airlock module for discharging cosmonauts on the platform, however, a source told Sputnik in April that Russia was discontent with its role in the project because it was forced to build the unit under the US standards to ensure the use of only US space suits on the platform.