MOSCOW, April 12 (Xinhua) -- A Russian national space center will cost about 25 billion rubles (nearly 390 million U.S. dollars), Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
"I would very much like it to look modern, beautiful, worthy of the industry, so that our scientific and educational potentials can be concentrated there," Putin said during a visit to rocket engine manufacturer Energomash in a Moscow suburb.
"It seems to me that it can and should become a world-class center," he said, according to an official transcript published by the Kremlin.
Putin said that he hopes a blueprint of the center, which will create up to 20,000 new jobs, will be ready in 2022.
In February, Putin instructed the federal government, the state space corporation Roscosmos and the Moscow city government to establish a national space center.
According to the instruction, the center would include the head offices of major rocket and space industry organizations, design bureaus and specialized units of research and educational organizations.
Earlier in February, Putin said he wanted a national space center as it was necessary to significantly increase the capabilities of Russian satellites to achieve a "revolution" in communications, navigation and systems for remote sensing of the Earth.
