Russia developing manned space programme to replace ISS

Russia is developing a national programme of manned space explorations which will replace the International Space Station (ISS) programme after 2020, the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, said Thursday.

"The development of the national strategy of manned spaceflight is under way now. Along with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the industrial sector, we are preparing a certain concept beyond the ISS," Roscosmos Deputy Chief Sergei Savelyev told reporters at the 18th St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

China and the European Space Agency, he added, were seen as the potential partners in the new strategy, but the key role would belong to Russia, according to Xinhua.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defence sectors, said earlier in the week that Moscow had no plans to extend the operation of the ISS beyond 2020, though the US had proposed to extend ISS cooperation past that year.

On Tuesday, Rogozin also threatened that from June 1 Moscow would shut down 11 US global positioning system (GPS) base stations on Russian territory in response to Washington's anti-Russia sanctions and its refusal to plant Russian Glonass ground base stations on US territory.