The orbital station that Russia plans to launch after 2025 will feature a modular design, and may serve as a site for finally assembling and launching spacecraft into deep space, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Aleksandr Sergeyev said on the sidelines of the Tavrida forum of young arts and cultural workers on Friday. This reported by TASS.

"The ISS [the International Space Station] was made in the paradigm of the 1970s-1980s, when it was designed. This time has passed, and a new view has evolved on the layout and the tasks that the station must cope with, and this relates not only to experiments and some observations," Russia’s top scientist pointed out.

"This also means that this should be some sort of a service station to gear towards cosmonautics, carry out the repairs of some spaceships that have broken down or, perhaps, it may serve as some hub to orbit separate fragments of a future spacecraft for a deep space flight because the launch of such spaceships from Earth is costly and requires some super-heavy carriers," Sergeyev said.

The future space station is expected to accommodate a special research module to engage in science and up-to-date monitoring, he specified. "It will be possible to outfit this station with new units and compartments, and assemble it in the form of some building kit," Sergeyev noted.

Russia has already "carried out research into the new technologies that must be introduced there, and how these technologies must be tested on the ground," the top scientist said, adding that the project of a new orbital outpost was prompted by the condition of the ISS.

"According to some estimates, even the cost of maintaining our activity aboard the ISS can be comparable to that of creating a new orbital station. Therefore, the question arose about whether we should speed up the project of creating the ROSS [the Russian orbital service station]. Of course, much will depend on the economic situation in the country… [creating a new station] is a very costly effort," the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences said. If a decision is made soon "on Russia’s exit from the ISS," the project can be implemented after 2025, he added.