MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax) - Russia's orbital station will support deep space exploration and meet the challenges the country is facing, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"We need to create sovereign space systems and a new-generation component base. [We need to] complete the design of Russia's orbital station, which will become our country's outpost [in space], [and] serve the purpose of researching and exploring space, primarily deep space," Putin said when giving a speech at a special event dedicated to Cosmonautics Day.
"We shouldn't forget about [the interests of] the country either. Specialists know that the new station will be designed, among other things and perhaps first and foremost, to meet the challenges that our country is facing in the broadest sense of the word," he said.
Scientific goals must be consistently attained, he said. "This includes resuming our lunar program as soon as possible, [launching] missions to other planets of the Solar System, [and] developing Russian space observatories," Putin said.