MOSCOW - Russia?is to?send its cosmonauts to the moon no later than 2030 and secure its independence in space exploration, Russian federal space agency Roscosmos said Friday.

According to the Roscosmos website, the country also plans to build a lunar orbital station after 2030 as a stop-over platform for the manned expeditions.

To guarantee its independent access to space, Russia plans to build by 2020 super-heavy rockets, which will be launched from Vostochny cosmodrome, now being built in Amur region in the Far East.

These rockets would be capable of carrying up to 20 tons of payload, Roscosmos said.

Meanwhile, the space agency described 2030 as a breakthrough year for Russia's space technologies, which would enable the country to explore the moon and send a manned mission to Mars.

"By 2030, the measures must be undertaken to deploy and maintain orbital groups to serve the needs of the (Russian) social-economic sphere, science, defense, national security, and to create progressive technologies of servicing, fueling and repairing the space vehicles in the near-Earth space," Roscosmos said.

It also envisages Russia will be ready for regular manned missions to the moon, building permanent bases on the Earth's satellite before 2030, and for full-scale preparation for manned expeditions to Mars and unmanned missions to asteroids after 2030.

Roscosmos also said Russia would protect its space vehicles from "aggressive actions" by using "political capabilities and technical means and the right for self-defense".