While the provided search results don't contain the direct quote from President Putin about Russia needing to work on reaching Mars and developing the necessary materials, they do offer context about Russia's historical and current involvement in Mars exploration:
- Early Ambitions: The Soviet Union initiated the Mars program with a series of uncrewed spacecraft between 1960 and 1973.
- Challenges and Setbacks: Russia's planetary exploration program faced significant challenges, particularly after the failure of the Mars-96 mission in 1996. This failure greatly impacted Russia's cooperation with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) in Mars exploration.
- Cooperation with ESA: Russia has partnered with ESA on the ExoMars program, contributing launchers and descent modules1. The ExoMars rover, provided by ESA, is designed to search for signs of past or present life on Mars and is equipped to drill up to 2 meters below the surface.
- Mars500 Program: Russia, in collaboration with ESA and China, conducted the MARS-500 experiment, a psychosocial isolation study, to simulate a mission to Mars. This program aimed to prepare for future human missions to the Moon and Mars.
- Future Plans: Despite past setbacks, Russia has considered various Mars mission concepts, including Mars-Aster and Mars-NET, with potential launch dates in the 2010s. These missions aimed to deploy landers and penetrators on the Martian surface for environmental studies.
- Manned Missions: Russia has also explored the possibility of manned Mars missions, with plans for a gradual buildup of hardware and experience.
