MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax-AVN) - A heavy or super-heavy rocket capable of delivering nuclear bombs to dangerous asteroids can be built by 2020-2030, Energia Corporation President Vitaly Lopota said at a Federation Council roundtable on Tuesday.
"We can build a rocket with a 70-ton payload by 2020 and a payload higher than 70 tons by 2025-2030," he said.
The United States intends to build a rocket with a 70-ton payload by 2017 but the Russian space program does not have such tasks and "the high- and super-power engines we have are not in demand," he said.
Lopota suggested a number of spacecraft for observation and deterrence of dangerous space objects. He said it would be the best to deploy telescopes in the third, fourth and fifth Lagrange points. "The deployment of observation instruments in these points 400,000 kilometers away from the Earth will create a powerful tracking system," he said.
But Russia is unable to do that alone: it needs international partners, Lopota said.