NASA postpones human flight to the Moon – Kommersant

NASA intends to postpone several of its missions to the Moon due to technical difficulties with spacecraft, reports Reuters with reference to sources. In particular, the Artemis 3 mission, which is supposed to land people on the Moon, will be postponed to a later date. It was planned for the end of 2025.

According to the agency, NASA will officially announce its plans today, January 9. Prior to this, the American space agency had been monitoring the situation with contractors for several months and considering making changes to the lunar program. It is expected that the second Artemis mission will also be delayed. It was planned for the end of 2024. The reason was problems with the batteries of the Orion crew capsule, identified during vibration tests. The batteries, made by Lockheed Martin, will need to be replaced, two Reuters sources said.

It is alleged that Artemis 3 will be postponed due to the need to refine the landing system of the SpaceX starship. According to agency sources, the company “needs more time than expected to reach certain development milestones.” The new dates for both missions are still unknown. NASA declined to comment. Lockheed Martin and SpaceX have not yet commented on the information.

As Reuters clarifies, NASA’s Artemis program largely depends on private companies. It is planned that the program will involve the Boeing and Northrop Grumman space launch system, the Lockheed Orion capsule and the SpaceX Starship. Important development milestones for the Starship system include the company’s plan to refuel at an orbital depot to ensure the craft has enough fuel to carry passengers to and from the lunar surface.

The day before became knownthat the private lunar module Peregrine of the American company Astrobotic, launched as part of NASA’s lunar program, began to suddenly lose fuel due to a failure of the propulsion system. The accident occurred approximately eight hours after launch. According to preliminary data, the fuel leak could have been caused by a malfunction in the propulsion system. If the hypothesis is confirmed, this may interfere with the soft landing of the Peregrine module on the Moon. It was planned that in the future Peregrine could be used in missions of the Artemis lunar program.

Laura Keffer