MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia plans to send cosmonauts to land on the Moon next decade for the first time in its history and intends to build a moon base from 2031, according to the Russian corporation responsible for manned space flights, state news agency TASS reported.
A draft plan presented by Vladimir Solovyov of RKK Energia said that Russia was planning manned missions to the moon, including the first Russian human moon landing, along with a moon base, TASS said on Wednesday.
"Preparations for the deployment of a lunar base - 2031-2040," TASS quoted the draft plan as saying. The plan also spoke of exploiting the moon's resources.
In August, Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed when its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and crashed into the moon, underscoring the post-Soviet problems experienced by a once mighty space programme.
U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong gained renown in 1969 for becoming the first person to walk on the moon, but the Soviet Union's Luna-2 mission was the first spacecraft to reach the moon's surface in 1959, and the Luna-9 mission in 1966 was the first to make a soft landing there.
Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer space on April 12, 1961, but Soviet cosmonauts never did a human landing on the moon.