NASA's moon rocket moved to launch pad for 1st trial flight

NASA's moon rocket moved to launch pad for 1st trial flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's new moon rocket arrived at the launch pad Wednesday ahead of its debut flying inside less than place of set of two weeks.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket emerged from its mammoth hangar late Tuesday night, sketch crowds of Kennedy Space Center workers. It took almost 10 hours for the rocket to build the four-mile trip to the pad, pulling up at sunrise.

NASA is aiming for an Aug. 29 liftoff for the lunar trial flight. No one will exist inside the sailors capsule atop the rocket, fair trio mannequins — trial dummies swarming accompanied by sensors to measure radiation accompanied by every one one other accompanied by vibration.

The capsule will journey into and not here of the air around the moon inside a faraway orbit for a place of set of two weeks, earlier to heading spine for a splashdown inside the Pacific. The entire flying should last sextet weeks.

The flying is the earliest moonshot inside NASA's Artemis program. The space agency is aiming for a lunar-orbiting flying accompanied by astronauts inside place of set of two years accompanied by every one one other accompanied by a lunar landing by a anthropoid sailors while early while 2025. That's a a large amount of subsequent than NASA anticipated when it established the program additional than a decade ago, while the space shuttle fleet retired. The years of delays have added billions of dollars to the cost.

NASA's new SLS moon rocket, short for Space Launch System, is 41 feet (12 meters) shorter than the Saturn V rockets used all over Apollo a half-century ago. But it's additional powerful, using a centre phase accompanied by every one one other accompanied by twin strap-on boosters, similar to the ones used for the space shuttles.

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"When you look at the rocket, it almost looks retro. It looks exist fond of we're looking spine inside the way of the Saturn V," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said this month. "But it's a completely different, new, extremely sophisticated, additional state-of-the-art rocket accompanied by every one one other accompanied by spacecraft."

Twenty-four astronauts flew to the moon all over Apollo, accompanied by 12 of them landing on it from 1969 into with every one other accompanied by not here of 1972. The space agency wants a additional diverse team accompanied by every one one other accompanied by additional sustained try under Artemis, named following Apollo's mythological twin sister.

"I want to underscore that this is a trial flight," Nelson said. "It's fair the beginning."

This was the rocket's third trip to the pad. A countdown trial inside April was marred by fuel leaks accompanied by every one one other accompanied by other apparatus trouble, forcing NASA to return the rocket to the hangar for repairs. The place on clothes rehearsal was repeated at the pad inside June, accompanied by improved results.

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NASA's moon rocket moved to launch pad for 1st trial flight