MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The head of the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, Russia's space industry leader, said Friday that the United States was intending to spend $11 billion and Russia $2 billion on new lunar programs.
Nikolai Sevastyanov told a roundtable session at the Federation Council, parliament's upper house, that Russia could make three flights to the Moon for $2 billion, using serially produced rockets.
"It is possible to use serially produced rockets to launch space modules into orbit, using the International Space Station (ISS) as an assembly facility for spacecraft, which will make flights to the Moon," he said.
Sevastyanov said the ISS would also be used for testing industry-applied space systems, adding that the Smotr remote sensing system, designed for monitoring industrial infrastructure, including technical conditions of pipelines, is currently being tested along with antennas for commercial satellites.
