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BAIKONUR, An ultra-heavy booster is needed to be created in order to prevent the Earth from asteroids and comets, head of the Russian space rocket corporation, Energia, Vitaly Lopota said on Friday.

The booster should be designed on the basis of the existing flying components, which have been created within the Energia booster program, Lopota said. “Such booster will be able to carry and deploy detection and tracking system elements [a thermonuclear warhead if it necessary] near dangerous space facilities,” the corporation’s head explained.

He noted that the Energia Corporation considered it necessary to develop Russia’s system to monitor asteroids. “We propose to fulfil this task by using three spacecraft deployed in the Langrage points in the Earth-Moon system,” Lopota said.

At the same time, he said, “The ISS [International Space Station] should be used as the base to practise technology and cooperation.”

In his view, in order to resolve this issue different organisations and enterprises should maintain cooperation, including on the international arena. “Domestic and foreign space organizations, institutes and companies with which we develop cooperation show interests in our proposals,” Lopota stressed.

Quelle: Itar-Tass