FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Putin Announces Russian Mars Mission for 2019
March 15, 2018 (EIRNS)—In a follow-up to his March 1 Address to the Federal Assembly, RT reports today that President Vladimir Putin told Andrey Kondrashov in a new documentary, “Putin,” that,
“We are planning unmanned and later manned launches—into deep space, as part of a lunar program and for Mars exploration. The closest mission is very soon—we are planning to launch a mission to Mars in 2019.”
He further stated that the lunar exploration program would target the polar regions of the Moon.
“Our specialists will try landing near the poles because there are reasons to expect water there. There is research to be done there, and from that, research of other planets and outer space can be undertaken,”
Putin said.
(China has announced plans to set up a base in the region of the Moon’s South Pole.)
The plans for Russia’s lunar program include a landing test at the Moon’s southern pole scheduled for 2019, testing technology that can be used for a permanent lunar outpost in 2023 and a soil retrieval mission in 2025. A base on the Moon may be established sometime in the 2040s or 2050s.
RT reports that Russia has not attempted any Martian missions since the failed launch of Phobos-Grunt in 2011, but has collaborated with other nations. The 2016 Schiaparelli EDM lander mission was part of a joint program by Russia’s Roscosmos and the European Space Agency, and utilized a Russian rocket.
