At the beginning of the 1980s, one of the USSR leading developers of scientific space probes had completed a preliminary design of a revolutionary, new-generation spacecrafts, 1F and 2F.
On 1 August 1983, VPK, the Soviet Military Industrial Commission commissioned an official decision (number 274) titled, "On works for creation of automated interplanetary vehicles for the exploration of planets of the Solar System, the Moon and cosmic space".