Moscow:  Extending strategic ties into the civilian arena, Russia will now cooperate with India in helping it build an indigenously designed manned spaceship by 2020. Russian space agency officials said that they would share technology used in developing Russian Souyz spacecraft with India.

Soyuz TMA-7 capsule

''The Indian side intends to use the experience of building the manned spaceship Soyuz to advance in building their own spaceship. We will build this spaceship on a similar technical scheme, but it will not resemble Soyuz,'' Alexei Krasnov, chief of the department of piloted programmes of the federal space agency, Roskosmos, said.

Krasnov told Itar-Tass news agency that the Soyuz is heavier and cannot be launched by a light Indian booster.

''These plans are outlined until 2020,'' he said.

President and designer general of the Russian Aerospace Corporation, Energia, Vitaly Lopota said the corporation's specialists ''possess all space technologies,'' which they could share with Indian partners.

Krasnov also revealed that both sides had discussed using Soyuz modules for spaceflights of first Indian astronauts. ''A flight of Indian astronauts aboard the Soyuz without a mission to the ISS was among the issues, which we discussed with Indian partners,'' he said.