Move SLS Megarocket, NASA Ready to Launch to the Moon

NEW YORK – NASA One step closer to the moon, through the Artemis mission, which was designed to focus on exploring the moon.

The US space agency has completed assembling the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and will now be deployed on the launch platform.

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The SLS megarocket will join the two rocket boosters that have been stored in High Bay 3.

This summer, the Orion spacecraft will be paired with SLS and ready to launch in an unmanned test flight around the moon in late 2021, as part of the Artemis I mission.

If all goes according to plan, agency officials said the flight could take place as early as November.

The Artemis I mission will last more than three weeks and pave the way for Artemis 2, which will take a crew of four around the moon in 2023.

“This is the first time a complete flight unit has come together,” said Sean Arrieta of NASA’s Exploration Ground System.

Beyond that, the agency plans to begin landing astronauts near the moon’s south pole with the help of a commercially developed lunar lander.

In April, NASA chose the first lander – a version of SpaceX’s Starship – to land the first crew of Artemis on the moon.

(wbs)

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