Moscow: Russia will help India build a
domestic manned spaceship by 2020 sharing the technology used
in developing Souyz spacecraft, a senior official said today.
"The Indian side intends to use the experience of
building the manned spaceship Soyuz to advance in building
their own spaceship. We will build this spaceship on a similar
technical scheme, but it will not resemble Soyuz," he said.
Chief of the department of piloted programmes of the
federal space agency (Roskosmos) Alexei Krasnov told Itar-Tass
news agency that the Soyuz is heavier and cannot be launched
by a light Indian booster.
"These plans are outlined until 2020," he said.
President and Designer General of the Russian Aerospace
Corporation Energia Vitaly Lopota said the corporation's
specialists "possess all space technologies," which they can
share with Indian partners.
"With Roskosmos's appropriate support we will be able to
reequip technically and increase the production of the
spaceships Soyuz," he noted.
New spaceships Soyuz can also be used for the
spaceflights of first Indian astronauts. This issue has
already been discussed with India, Krasnov said.
"A flight of Indian astronauts aboard the Soyuz
without a mission to the ISS was among the issues, which we
discussed with Indian partners," he noted.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, December 23, 2009, 20:23