The new station will be located in a geometrically advantageous location with the possibility of an extended coverage of the Earth's surface. The station will see up to 90 percent of the territory of Russia and the Arctic shelf, while for the ISS this figure does not exceed 5 percent.
Russia will start in 2017 the deployment of its own orbital space station, for its creation can be used part of the modules previously intended for the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS), writes the newspaper Kommersant on Monday, citing a source close to the leadership of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering.
“The new station will be located in a geometrically advantageous location with the possibility of an extended field of view of the Earth's surface. Up to 90% of the territory of Russia and the Arctic shelf will be visible from the station, while for the ISS this figure does not exceed 5%,”the source quotes the publication.
According to him, the amount of costs has not yet been determined. At the initial stage, according to the newspaper, it is planned to use modules and devices developed for the Russian segment of the ISS. Despite this, according to newspaper sources, there is no talk of an early curtailment of work on the ISS.
“The initial configuration will be formed on the basis of the multipurpose laboratory and nodal modules, the OKA-T spacecraft. The operation of the station will be provided by the Soyuz-MS and Progress-MS spacecraft, and in the period 2020-2024, it is possible to develop the power and transformable modules used in the lunar program,”the source said.
According to the source, one of the main tasks of the station will be flight design tests of manned facilities of the lunar infrastructure, that is, it will act as a "springboard", since it is planned that special devices will first be delivered to the station and then follow to the Moon.
According to the publication, the launch of the Russian high-latitude orbital station into orbit is one of the key proposals of the project for the development of manned space exploration for the period up to 2050.