Director General of state Corporation “Rosatom” Igor Komarov in an interview with reporters on the sidelines of the Australian international Astronautical Congress said that he agreed with his U.S. counterpart on beginning the joint construction of space stations in orbit of the moon.
It is assumed that the future station will be international, so it will be not only Russian and American astronauts and experts from BRICS countries. The working title of the project — Deep Space Gateway (Yes, almost like Deep Space Nine from Star Trek).
Komarov said that while the parties reached preliminary agreements concerning the construction, therefore, definite plans are not yet available. However, as reported TASS, the first stage of construction involves the construction of modules of the orbital base and then used advanced technologies and developments will be used for the development of the surface of the moon, and later Mars.
In the initial phase of construction and development of the database of Russian experts plan to create one to three technical and residential units. It is also planned to develop docking mechanisms for arriving to the station ships. In addition, from the Russian side received an offer to use the Russian launch vehicles heavy class for the output modules in lunar orbit.
According to General Director of “Roscosmos”, the output of the first space station modules into orbit may start in 2024-2026.
Russia and USA together will build a lunar orbital station
Vyacheslav Larionov