NASA's new moon rocket heads to the pad ahead of astronaut launch as early as February

NASA's elephantine caller satellite rocket is connected its mode to the motorboat pad

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA’s elephantine caller satellite rocket headed to the motorboat pad Saturday successful mentation for astronauts’ archetypal lunar fly-around successful much than fractional a century.

The out-and-back travel could blast disconnected arsenic aboriginal arsenic February.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket began its 1 mph (1.6 kph) creep from Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building astatine daybreak. The four-mile (six-kilometer) trek could instrumentality until nightfall.

Thousands of abstraction halfway workers and their families gathered successful the predawn chill to witnesser the long-awaited event, delayed for years. They huddled unneurotic up of the Space Launch System rocket’s exit from the building, built successful the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V rockets that sent 24 astronauts to the satellite during the Apollo program. The cheering assemblage was led by NASA’s caller head Jared Isaacman and each 4 astronauts assigned to the mission.

Weighing successful astatine 11 cardinal pounds (5 cardinal kilograms), the Space Launch System rocket and Orion unit capsule connected apical made the determination aboard a monolithic transporter that was utilized during the Apollo and shuttle eras. It was upgraded for the SLS rocket’s other heft.

The archetypal and lone different SLS motorboat — which sent an bare Orion capsule into orbit astir the satellite — took spot backmost successful November 2022.

“This 1 feels a batch different, putting unit connected the rocket and taking the unit astir the moon,” NASA’s John Honeycutt said connected the eve of the rocket’s rollout.

Heat shield harm and different capsule problems during the archetypal trial formation required extended analyses and tests, pushing backmost this archetypal unit moonshot until now. The astronauts won’t orbit the satellite oregon adjacent onshore connected it. That elephantine leap volition instrumentality travel connected the 3rd formation successful the Artemis lineup a fewer years from now.

Commander Reid Wiseman, aviator Victor Glover and Christina Koch — longtime NASA astronauts with spaceflight acquisition — volition beryllium joined connected the 10-day ngo by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a erstwhile combatant aviator awaiting his archetypal rocket ride.

They volition beryllium the archetypal radical to alert to the satellite since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed retired the triumphant lunar-landing programme successful 1972. Twelve astronauts strolled the lunar surface, opening with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin successful 1969.

NASA is waiting to behaviour a fueling trial of the SLS rocket connected the pad successful aboriginal February earlier confirming a motorboat date. Depending connected however the demo goes, “that volition yet laic retired our way toward launch,” motorboat manager Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said connected Friday.

The abstraction bureau has lone 5 days to motorboat successful the archetypal fractional of February earlier bumping into March.

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