Start of Russia's human missions to Moon postponed - Roscosmos

MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) - The start of Russia's program to take cosmonauts to the Moon has been postponed, Oleg Gorshkov, an advisor to the Roscosmos state space corporation's CEO, said.

"The start of the human flight program to the Moon has been delayed due to budgetary restrictions affecting the creation of a super heavy-lift launch vehicle," Gorshkov said at a Young Scientists Congress session.

On October 4, 2022, Roscosmos CEO Yury Borisov said that Russia would be technologically ready by 2030 to land cosmonauts on the Moon.

On May 13, 2024, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said that Russia would start building a super heavy-lift launch vehicle at its Vostochny Cosmodrome in 2025.

On April 14, 2023, Borisov said that the development and creation of a super heavy-lift rocket may take 8-9 years.

Head of the Progress Rocket and Space Center Dmitry Baranov, for his part, said in February 2021 that the development of the Yenisei rocket for the lunar program had been suspended and that the developers were waiting for a decision on the modification of the rocket's concept.

As reported earlier, the Russian Academy of Sciences' Council on Space issued a recommendation to indefinitely postpone the development of a super heavy-lift launch vehicle for missions to the Moon.