Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos, recently told the Voice of Russia radio service that the agency's science council would hold discussions to work out a plan to divert the trajectory of the Apophis asteroid, which reportedly will pass close to the Earth several times between 2029 and 2036.

The Russian plan to prevent the potential impact of Apophis comes after the October 2009 announcement by NASA that the asteroid would likely pass within 18,000 miles of Earth in 2029. However, NASA later "all but ruled out" the one-in-250,000 likelihood of the asteroid hitting the Earth in 2036.

Nonetheless, saying that the Russian researchers intend going through with their plan of sending a spacecraft to knock the huge asteroid to a safer orbit, Perminov said: "People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people."

Perminov further added that going by the calculations of the researchers, the special-purpose spacecraft can possibly be created in time to avert the threat of Apophis' collision with the Earth. Noting that the proposed solution does not include the use of nuclear weapons, Perminov said that invitations have been extended to NASA, the ESA, and other space agencies for participation in the planning.