By Trend

France has abandoned plans to create, together with Russia, a device for the orbiter that India plans to launch to Venus, Oleg Korablev, deputy director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the ExoMars project, head of the Planetary Physics department of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS, Trend reports.

The device is intended to study the atmosphere of Venus by spectroscopy. Some of the components were supposed to be French.

"We have solved this issue [with components], we are conducting all the preparatory stages, [we are also] looking for suppliers, everything is in order," Korablev said, "Unfortunately, the French Space Agency announced that they are no longer interested in participating in this project, but we can buy everything ourselves".

Deputy Director of the Space Research Institute said that this option has already been agreed upon with Roscosmos. The key element, the detector, will be Russian-made. "In principle, there is also a Chinese analogue, but now we want to use a Russian one," Korablev said.

According to him, the French side initially planned to pay for the purchase of the detector. "Roscosmos approached the whole thing with understanding, with aspiration," Korablev added, "We agreed on new estimates, the costs; Russia itself will buy these components. And, accordingly, not of French manufacture".