The first manned flight to the surface of the Moon since 1972 was supposed to take place already next year.
of the United States the space administration Nasa is postponing its Artemis moon flights, reports news agency Reuters.
The reason for the postponement is technical problems with the spaceships used during the flights.
Nasa confirmed the matter on Tuesday evening.
Nasan the manned Artemis 2 flight was planned for the end of 2024. Now Artemis 2 has been moved to September 2025. It is supposed to orbit the Moon and act as a general exercise for Artemis 3, which would take a man to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
Artemis 3 was supposed to be launched in 2025, but it will now be moved to September 2026. The flight has already been postponed before.
The first Artemis flight was carried out in 2022 unmanned.
Although Behind the Artemis program are the billions of the United States and other Western countries, it relies heavily on the private sector. Nasa has closely monitored the progress of its subcontractors in the technical development of the ships, and the projects have encountered various problems in recent months.
According to sources, problems have recently been detected in the batteries of the Orion ship manufactured by Lockheed Martin in vibration tests, and new batteries must be developed for the ships. Astronauts are supposed to travel from Earth to the orbit of the Moon aboard Orion.
Also Elon Musk's The development of the Starship lander designed by the SpaceX company has progressed more slowly than expected. The purpose is for the lander to be refueled in orbit before it travels to the Moon. Refueling in orbit is technically very complicated, and Nasa considers it a potential development bottleneck.
Lockheed Martin and SpaceX did not comment to Reuters.
The Artemis program is intended to take a man to the surface of the Moon for the first time since 1972, when the last flight of NASA's Apollo program was made.
This time, the purpose is also to eventually build a permanent base on the surface of the Moon.
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