Posted by tourdemars to Future Missions at November 25, 2004 08:02 PM

Russia's space program is unlikely to launch a planetary mission before 2009 because of cash shortages, a top scientist told AFP. The unmanned mission will aim to land on Phobos, a moon orbiting Mars, and a mission to the Earth's Moon is unlikely in the near future, said Eric Galimov, planetologist and director of the V.I. Vernandsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry at the Russian Academy of Sciences.