The Russian state corporation Roscosmos intends to hold a meeting in August on developing super-heavy rocket carrier involving a wide range of enterprises of the industry. "In early August we will hold a meeting in Samara, during which we will form cooperation and discuss the plan to design the rocket carrier," Roscosmos head Oleg Ostapenko told reporters on Monday.

According to Ostapenko, the super-heavy rocket will be designed as a separate rocket carrier and not as a modernization of the Angara rocket carrier to the super-heavy class, Interfax reports. The super-heavy rocket will be used in Russian Lunar and Martian programs, he said.

Roscosmos initiates creating a new super-heavy carrier as the Angara rocket carrier potential is not sufficient to the goal the space agency is facing, Ostapenko said.

"The potential of the Angara-5 - and this is a heavy rocket - is within 25 tons. This rocket is not sufficient to fly to Mars, Moon, asteroids and to build inhabited lunar bases. The issue arises on building a new super-heavy-class carrier, including for pilot missions," Ostapenko has said in an interview.

"Now all countries able to do anything serious in space - firstly the United States and China - take namely this path," he said. Russia has every capacity to create such rockets, he said.

"We have calculated - at the first stage we able to make a rocket, which will bring 70-80 tonnes useful cargo to the low-Earth orbit. Then, upon modernizing it, [we able to make] the rocket, which will carry from 120 tonnes and more, and up to 190 tonnes in future," Ostapenko said.

Roscosmos drafted its proposals taking into account the potential of leading Russian enterprises - Energia, Progress and Khrunichev Center, he said.

The experience of producing the Energia rocket, created for the Buran spacecraft, will definitely be taken into account, the Roscosmos head said. "Especially on engine units. This way we save considerable funds and, at the same time, resolve tasks at an absolutely new technological level," he said.

Source: Voice Of Russia