The Russians are going to the moon. (Луна)

The Luna Glob mission will be off in 2012 to choose a landing site for future missions.

“It will fly around the Moon, select a landing space for the rover and other engineering and research vehicles, and study the lunar nucleus with the use of special penetrators,” Vladimir Yefanov has announced. He is the deputy head of the Lavochkin Research and Production Centre.

The next stage of the project, with some support from the European Space Agency is planned to be a Russo-Indian expedition, which will deliver a lunar reconnaissance vehicle to the site chosen by the Luna Glob. Russia will produce the reconnaissance vehicle, while India will possibly develop the orbiter, he said.

The vehicle will collect more samples of lunar soil, which will be stage three of the project. Stage four implies a manned expedition to the Moon and maintaining a research station there .

At the same time the Russian Federal Space Agency is holding talks with the ESA and NASA on Russia’s participation in the ExoMars European Martian mission.