Russia unveiled Tuesday an ambitious space-exploration plan to send and astronaut to the Moon by 2030, Time.com reported.
Russia's space agency Roscomsos said its currently developing a manned spacecraft for the "full-scale" mission, culminating in the first person sent to the Moon in decades.
"At the end of the next decade, we plan to complete tests of a super-heavy-class carries rocket and begin full-scale exploration of the Moon," Roscomsos head Oleg Ostapenko said according to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.
The lunar mission will begin with unmanned space probes and escalate to manned expeditions in the next 15 years.
"By that time, based on the results of lunar surface exploration by unmanned space probes, we will designate [the] most promising places for lunar expeditions and lunar bases," the space agency head said at a government meeting.
News of the space mission comes after Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who chaired the meeting, threatened to sever ties with the International Space Station and NASA due to Western-imposed sanctions for Russia's involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.
Rogozin said in May that Russia did not want to collaborate with an "unreliable partner that politicizes everything," according to The Moscow Times.
Rogozin did not mention the threat when he announced the plan on Tuesday.
Meanwhile in India, officials announced its $74 million Mars Orbiter Mission successfully entered the Red Planet's orbit on Wednesday, making it the first Asian country to reach Mars.
