"It is necessary to take our own station into orbit to carry out tasks that are impossible in the framework of international cooperation on the ISS," he said in an interview published in Izvestiya on Friday.

"We have made headway. A core unit remains at the Khrunichev Space Center, the Energiya Rocket and Space Corporation has components of the control module," he said. Financing for building new modules could be organized, he said.

"Nevertheless, in the present situation it is much more important to preserve what is. I mean the orbital grouping of satellites that guarantee communications, television broadcasting, weather forecasting, traffic control and the prospecting of natural resources," Senkevich said.

He named the absence of funding among the key obstacles to the development of the Russian space program. "Russia spends two-thirds less on space than China. We are the last among the top ten space powers in this respect," he said.

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