'Russia building super-heavy space rockets'

, July 1:

is designing a carrier rocket of the super-heavy class, capable to deliver spacecraft for missions to the Moon and Mars, Russian

agency Roscosmos said Monday.

"We'll hold a meeting in August to discuss the plans to design the rocket carrier," Xinhua quoted Roscosmos head Oleg Ostapenko as saying, adding that the draft proposals were sent to leading Russian space enterprises.

The super-heavy 120-to-190-tonne rocket will be designed as a separate rocket carrier, not as a modernisation of the Angara rocket, he said.

"Roscosmos initiates the creation of a new super-heavy carrier, as the space agency is not satisfied with the Angara rocket's potential as a carrier," Ostapenko said.

The workload of the Angara-5 heavy rocket is within 25 tonnes, not enough for the travel to the Moon, Mars and to build Lunar bases, he said, adding that Russia has the capacity to create super-heavy rockets as the US and China do.

It is possible that special launch site will be constructed for the super-heavy carrier at the newly-built Vostochny cosmodrome in Far Eastern Amur region, Ostapenko added.

Last December, Lev Zelyony, director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science, said that Russia had set ambitious goals to regain the title of leading space power by 2023.

IANS