"In fact, the work on the creation of a strategic space transport system has never stopped ... Technically, we are ready to start creating a super-heavy rocket right now ... the elements of a super-heavy rocket are present," TASS quoted him as saying.
Rogozin noted that a super-heavy rocket “costs colossal money”, it cannot be “sculpted from what was,” but only the latest technologies should be used, for example, composite tanks, which are 30-40% lighter than tanks made of existing alloys.
In addition, it is planned to develop methane engines, which will make it possible to reuse the rocket stages, added the head of the state corporation.
“We will do better a little later, but we will make it so that it will be an incentive for the development of composite materials at Roscosmos, and new alloy systems, and new production systems, and new engines that are not yet available, but we hope to get them by 2024–2025, ”he said.
On September 15, the general director of the Samara Rocket and Space Center "Progress" Dmitry Baranov announced that the development of a super-heavy rocket for flights to the moon had been suspended.
The work was stopped at the stage of technical design and it is possible that they can be resumed after the program is clarified, he stressed.