HispanicBusiness

Russian government will allocate $70 billion (2.1 trillion rubles) for space industry development in 2013-2020, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday.

"Historically, our positions in space exploration was perhaps the strongest in the world, this must be sustained. Russia was, is and will be a leading space power," Medvedev told the last government meeting this year.

Still, Medvedev said, the space industry suffered from numerous problems which must be solved for Russia to fully participate in international projects.

He named the International Space Station, and exploration of Moon and Mars in particular and stressed the rocket-space industry must increase reliability of its production.

"Reliability is a key word," Medvedev said.

Earlier this year, Medvedev said hardships the space industry had been experiencing could not justify the string of failures in recent years.

According to the Khrunichev Space Research and Production Center, four of 48 Proton-M rocket launches and one of eight Rokot launches have failed in the period between 2008 and 2012.

By 2020, Russia plans to have 113 satellites in orbit and increase its share of the global market for space vehicles and rockets from 10 to 16 percent, according to the federal space agency Roscosmos.