The next equipment delivery trip to the International Space Station (ISS) will take place a week later than planned, on March 30 instead of March 22, the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, said Monday.
“The launch was planned for March 22 but, for various reasons, it has been postponed,” Konstantin Kreidenko, a Roskosmos spokesman, told AFP, without giving further details.
The first Brazilian astronaut, Marcos Pontes, is due to travel on the Soyuz spacecraft, joining the permanent mission of two cosmonauts, one Russian and one American, who are leaving for a six-month mission, due to take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The ISS construction programme has been plagued by problems with the US space shuttle, which is the only vehicle able to take up very large components, and has had to rely on Russia for the transport of supplies and equipment.
The shuttle is due to be mothballed from 2010 and long delays between missions as a result of the February 2003 destruction of the shuttle Columbia have hampered the building schedule.
