Manned flights to Mars are not stipulated in the guidelines of state policy in the space sphere, Chief Designer and First Deputy CEO of Energia Space Rocket Corporation Yevgeny Mikrin said on Tuesday.

"Such flights are not planned so far and they are absent in the guidelines of the state policy," Mikrin said, replying to a question about whether Russia planned crewed flights to Mars.

First Deputy Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Yuri Urlichich earlier said at the academic readings on cosmonautics devoted to Soviet Rocket Designer Sergei Korolyov that Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree on the state policy in the sphere of activity in outer space.