NASA’s Space Launch System’s gigantic lunar rocket, topped with an unmanned astronaut capsule, began crawling onto the launch pad Tuesday night ahead of the behemoth’s first test flight this month. The 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket is scheduled for its first mission into space without any humans on Aug. 29. It will be a crucial, long-delayed demonstration trip to the Moon for NASA’s Artemis program. , the United States‘ multibillion-dollar effort to return humans to the lunar surface as practice for future missions to Mars.
The Space Launch System, whose development has been led by Boeing Co for the past decade, rolled out of its assembly building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT) on Tuesday and began the four-mile (6-kilometer) journey to the launch pad. At a speed of less than 1.6 km/h, it will take about 11 hours to load. NASA’s Orion space capsule, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., sits atop the rocket. It is designed to separate from a rocket in space, carry humans toward the moon, and rendezvous with a separate spacecraft that will transport astronauts to the lunar surface.
For the Aug. 29 mission, called Artemis 1, the Orion capsule will lift off atop the Space Launch System without any humans and orbit the moon before returning to Earth to descend into the ocean 42 days later. If poor launch weather or a minor technical issue causes a delay on August 29, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has backup launch dates of September 2 and September 5.
Read Now :Britain wants self-driving vehicles on the road across the board by 2025
