NEW DELHI — Russia and India may join forces in exploring the moon, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday, touting the two countries' potential for cooperation on high-technology projects.
"We need to identify priorities for our joint work in space," Putin said during a video conference in New Delhi. "Moon exploration could be one of these priorities."
Russia, which sent the first satellite and man into space, is rebuilding a space program that was decimated by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The country is also working on space projects with the United States and China and is planning to fly an Indian astronaut in its Soyuz vehicle.
Under a space cooperation agreement signed Friday, Russia plans to send an Indian into space in 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters.
Anatoly Perminov, head of the Federal Space Agency, said in New Delhi in December 2008, that India might get its own spacecraft after 2015.
Russia and India earlier agreed to send an unmanned mission to the moon and erect a laboratory on the lunar surface. The accord will expire at the end of 2017.
Perminov last year told Rossiiskaya Gazeta that Russia plans a manned flight to the moon by 2025-2030 and to Mars by 2040.
U.S. President Barack Obama suggested on Feb. 1 that his country scrap a plan by his predecessor to put astronauts back on the moon by 2020, saying it was "over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation."
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