Russian high-latitude multi-purpose manned space station will replace the International space station after 2015, say Federal Space Agency’s authorities during the presentation at the Fifth International Aerospace congress.
      
      Summarizing the Federal space programme of 2001-2005, space authorities report that Russia pursues the policy of outer space exploration. “Russia is able to realize grand space programmes alone, but is eagerly involved into international projects”, says the deputy administrator of RosCosmos.
      
      Last five years have seen the launch of almost 80 vehicle carriers and 54 civil spaceships. The official said that main points of Federal space programme 2006-2015 include three-fold increase of orbital satellite communication system’s capacity, setting-up two meteorological units on the basis of “Electra” spaceships and launch of “Spektr” astro-observatories.
      
      Also the programme includes two interplanetary missions, delivery of soil samples from Mars’s satellite by the automatic station “Phobos-grunt”, studies of Venus’s atmosphere with “Venera-D” station and etc.
      
      Russia plans to launch a multi-purpose research module in 2008. After 2015 Russian space industry would concentrate on developing High-latitude multi-purpose manned space station, which is aimed to replace the ISS on the orbit.
      
      The new station’s inclination would be 60 degrees, which allows observing much more than 10 per cent of Russian territory, which are available via the ISS. Moreover, the new station would host production of materials, which is impossible in the terrestrial environment.
      
      Source: Science News