The Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan June 6, 2018. (REUTERS PHOTO)
MOSCOW, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Russia plans to launch a new super heavy carrier rocket in 2027, Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Russia's Roscosmos State Space Corporation for Space Activities, said Tuesday.
"We are talking about a fundamentally new rocket," Rogozin said, adding that the vehicle will be launched from the newly built Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far Eastern Amur region.
He said in accordance with a presidential decree in February, a new workshop is being created in the Progress Rocket Space Center in Samara in European Russia to develop the rocket.
The new vehicle will be used to deliver cargoes to a future lunar station.
According to media reports, the rocket is expected to carry payloads of up to 90 tons to low earth orbit and up to 20 tons to lunar orbit.
In April, President Vladimir Putin said Russia was implementing a lunar program through 2030, aiming to send astronauts to the moon.
Russia will build a space station in lunar orbit and then modules on the moon, Putin said.
Vostochny is the first national facility for civilian space launches, ensuring Russia's full-scale access to outer space and reducing its dependence on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.