Article Posted on : - Apr 14, 2011

A file photo.

MOSCOW (BNS): A manned flight to Mars will be possible after 2035, the head of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov, said on Wednesday, RIA Novosti reports.

"The possibility of a flight to Mars needs to be combined with the construction of a spaceship having a new nuclear power propulsion unit, which will make it possible to reach the planet in a month," Perminoc was quoted as saying in the news report.

The propulsion system is to be created by 2012, and a new spacecraft by 2025, Perminov added.

For the joint project to create a nuclear power unit based transport module for future craft, approximately $256 million are to be allocated as part of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom's innovation development programme in 2010-2018, the report further said.