According to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, a mission to Mars should be launched in 2019. The details of the program are still unknown.
Vladimir Putin spoke about Russia's space plans in the film by Andrei Kondrashov (second part). They involve the exploration of the Moon and the Red Planet. According to the head of state, the Russian mission to Mars should be launched already in 2019. “We will now carry out unmanned launches there, and then manned launches - for deep space exploration, and the lunar program, then the exploration of Mars. The first is very soon - in 2019 we are going to launch a mission towards Mars,”Putin said.
Speaking about the plans to explore the Moon, the President added that they differ from the programs of the Soviet Union. The Russian program assumes landing on the satellite poles: the choice is due to the possible presence of water there. Vladimir Putin called the natural satellite of our planet a kind of platform from which deep space research will be conducted in the future.
It is worth noting that the American leadership sees Luna in a similar role. Last year, US President Donald Trump signed Directive # 1, which calls for the return of American astronauts to our planet's satellite. In this case, the "Martian" plans of the United States (meaning specifically manned missions) fade into the background. Perhaps it is the Moon that will become a "springboard" for a future flight to the Red Planet.
It is noteworthy that the revision by the US authorities of space priorities, it seems, did not affect the plans of the entrepreneur Elon Musk to carry out a flight to Mars in the 2020s. At the moment, in the bowels of SpaceX, the BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) system is being developed with might and main, involving the creation of a new super-powerful launch vehicle and a giant spacecraft that can be used for cargo-passenger Martian missions.
Note that at the moment six artificial satellites are operating in the orbit of Mars, and two rovers are operating on the surface of the Red Planet. Specialists from the Russian Federation took part in the creation of the European Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft, launched in 2016 and designed to study the origin of trace gases in the Martian atmosphere. At the same time, the Schiaparelli module landing on the planet ended in failure. Roscosmos is also participating in the Exomars-2020 program, which provides for the delivery of a Russian surface platform with a European rover to the Red Planet.
Ilya Vedmedenko