NASA's massive new moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), has finally begun its journey to the launch pad in preparation for an historic mission that will take astronauts on a lunar fly-around in over half a century. The 322-foot-tall rocket, weighing in at 11 million pounds, started its slow crawl from the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building early Saturday morning, with thousands of workers and their families gathered to witness the momentous occasion.
The journey, which is expected to take several hours, will see the SLS make a four-mile trek to the launch pad, where it will be joined by the Orion crew capsule. This marks a significant milestone for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface by 2025. The mission, scheduled for as early as February, will mark the first time astronauts have visited the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The four astronauts assigned to the mission – Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – are expected to embark on a 10-day journey, during which they will fly around the moon without landing. The first crewed lunar fly-around is just the precursor to future Artemis missions, which will include actual lunar landings.
However, this mission comes with its fair share of challenges. Initial test flights were plagued by heat shield damage and other issues that required extensive analyses and tests. NASA's John Honeycutt acknowledged that this mission feels different from previous SLS launches, citing the significance of putting crew on the rocket for the first time.
NASA is now waiting for a fueling test of the SLS rocket to confirm a launch date in early February. The space agency has only five days to launch before entering March, and any delay could impact the overall timeline of the Artemis program. As NASA pushes forward with its ambitious plans, the world watches with bated breath as humanity takes another giant leap towards exploring the cosmos.
The journey, which is expected to take several hours, will see the SLS make a four-mile trek to the launch pad, where it will be joined by the Orion crew capsule. This marks a significant milestone for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface by 2025. The mission, scheduled for as early as February, will mark the first time astronauts have visited the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The four astronauts assigned to the mission – Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – are expected to embark on a 10-day journey, during which they will fly around the moon without landing. The first crewed lunar fly-around is just the precursor to future Artemis missions, which will include actual lunar landings.
However, this mission comes with its fair share of challenges. Initial test flights were plagued by heat shield damage and other issues that required extensive analyses and tests. NASA's John Honeycutt acknowledged that this mission feels different from previous SLS launches, citing the significance of putting crew on the rocket for the first time.
NASA is now waiting for a fueling test of the SLS rocket to confirm a launch date in early February. The space agency has only five days to launch before entering March, and any delay could impact the overall timeline of the Artemis program. As NASA pushes forward with its ambitious plans, the world watches with bated breath as humanity takes another giant leap towards exploring the cosmos.