Russia to help India build manned spaceship

Russia will help India build a domestic manned spaceship by 2020, sharing the technology used in developing Soyuz spacecraft, a senior official said today.

"The Indian side intends to use the experience of building the manned spaceship Soyuz to advance in building their own spaceship. We will build this spaceship on a similar technical scheme, but it will not resemble Soyuz," he said.

Chief of the department of piloted programmes of the federal space agency (Roskosmos) Alexei Krasnov told Itar-Tass news agency that the Soyuz is heavier and cannot be launched by a light Indian booster.

"These plans are outlined until 2020," he said.

President and designer general of the Russian Aerospace Corporation Energia Vitaly Lopota said the corporation's specialists "possess all space technologies," which they can share with Indian partners.

"With Roskosmos's appropriate support, we will be able to reequip technically and increase the production of the spaceship Soyuz," he noted.

New spaceship Soyuz can also be used for the spaceflights of the first Indian astronauts. This issue has already been discussed with India, Krasnov said.