Russia planning own space station: Former Russian cosmonaut

MUMBAI: Russia is planning to establish its own national space station with the first module slated for launch in 2027, said former Russian cosmonaut Denis Matveev.

In an interaction with the media at the Nehru Planetarium on Thursday, Matveev, who was part of the Soyuz MS-21 mission in 2022, said the station will be open to international co-operation.

His statement assumes significance in the context of plans to deorbit the present International Space Station . Matveev, who has spent 194 days, 19 hours and one minute in space, said that Russia is not in the immediate race to land a man on the moon.

Matveev sees a bright future for Indo-Russian space collaboration and said that he met India’s cosmonaut Shubhanshu Shukla during his training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre .