Russia will return to its program of building the space shuttles and super-heavy carrier rockets after 2018, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday.

New carrier rockets will have a workload over 24 tons, director of Moscow's Central Machine-building Institute, Gennady Raikunov, said during the Strong Russia business conference.

According to Raikunov, the tests of the rocket will start in 2015 and its commercial exploitation will commence in 2018.

Russian space engineers also are working on building the rocket capable of delivering to the orbit a workload over 100 ton per launch, he said.

In more distant future, Raikunov's institute plans to work out a new manned spaceship and non-disposable boosters.

Soviet space shuttle program Buran managed to make only one unmanned flight in 1988 and has been closed soon afterwards.