Russian to mend problems on space industry

MOSCOW - Russia must develop clear goals for its space program in order to pull its space industry out of the currently unhealthy state, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Tuesday.

"Russia must formulate what it wants from space," Rogozin told the state-run Moscow radio, stressing a string of recent accidents with rocket launches were due to lack of clear goals in the national space industry.

The very structure of the Russian space industry was mazy, Rogozin said, but adding there was no systematic crisis in the industry.

"There are some problems in the particular enterprises," he said.

Rogozin pointed that there did exist in the country's space industry a large number of hand-labors, low technological equipment and aging workforce.

The official proposed Russia should set a goal of building a Lunar orbital base as an all-out objective, which would help overcome the industry's problems.

"This will be a base for farther leaps," he said.

Russia plans to allocate some 670 billion rubles ($21 billion) in the next few years for the space industry.

Since December 2010, Russia has suffered seven failed space launches. The most recent one was on Aug 7, when a Proton-M carrier rocket failed to put two telecommunications satellites into the correct orbit.