Russia spends $ 2.8 billion to explore the moon

On August 3, Mr. Igor Mitrofanov, director of the laboratory of the Russian Space Science and Research Institute, said that a manned moon exploration program will cost up to 100 billion rubles. (about 2.8 billion USD).

Speaking at a space science conference in Moscow, Mitrofanov said: 'The expected cost of a program to develop an automatic moon station is 10 billion rubles (about 280 million USD). This project will be completed in 5 or 6 years. And the manned moon exploration mission will cost 10 times more. "

Russia is still a leader in space exploration

He added that, before carrying out a manned mission, it was necessary to "learn how to land on the moon many times" , and automatic moon stations needed to accomplish this goal.

According to Mitrofanov, one of the partners of the Space Research Institute, currently developing 3 space stations named Luna-25 (Luna-Glob project), Luna-26 and Luna-27 , Luna-25 and Luna-27 is a moon-landing spacecraft designed to operate for 1 year, while Luna-26 is an orbiter spacecraft designed to monitor the moon for 2 years.

He also stressed that, within the next 10 years, moon bases will surely be built.

The mission to explore the moon has become one of Russia's top priorities in the universe. The country plans to launch three moon spacecraft, two of which go to the lunar surface and one to orbit the moon, at the end of the decade.

The first mission, Luna-25 (long delayed), is expected to be launched in 2016 and landed on the Moon's South Pole. The next two missions will include an orbiter spacecraft to monitor the moon, launched in 2018 and a moon landing ship to find frozen water on the moon launched in 2019.