Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, and NASA are to sign a protocol on joint projects in manned and unmanned space travel, the Russian agency’s head, Alexei Perminov, said on Wednesday.
“We are considering different variants of cooperation, including flights to asteroids, to a Lagrange point, carrying out joint work on the Moon and in a near-earth orbit,” Perminov told journalists in Moscow.
He added that Roscosmos had also asked NASA for assistance during the flight of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft late next year.
The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft will be sent to the surface of Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, and will return to Earth with soil samples.
The mission is expected to begin in November 2011 and last some 330 days.
