Final checks for new moon rocket
Nasa rolls out its next-gen spacecraft
Nasa’s next-generation moon rocket began a highly anticipated, slow-motion journey out of its assembly plant en route to the launch pad in Florida on Thursday for a final round of tests in the coming weeks that will determine how soon the spacecraft can fly.
Rollout of the 32-storey-tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion crew capsule marks a key milestone in US plans for renewed lunar exploration after years of setbacks, and the public’s first glimpse of a space vehicle more than a decade in development.
The process of moving the SLS-Orion spacecraft out of its Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building began shortly after 5.30pm local time under clear skies at Cape Canaveral.
The SLS-Orion, which cost some US$37 billion (1.2 trillion baht) to develop including ground systems, constitutes the backbone of Nasa’s Artemis programme, aimed at returning astronauts to the moon and establishing a long-term lunar colony as a precursor to eventual Mars exploration.
The megarocket — standing taller than the Statue of Liberty — was being slowly trundled to Launch Pad 39B atop an enormous tractorcrawler roughly the size of a baseball diamond, creeping on a 6.5-kilometre journey expected to take about 11 hours. The crawler is operated by a 25-person crew.
The spectacle was carried live on NASA TV and the space agency’s website. A band from the University of Central Florida played the national anthem as the rollout began in front of employees and other onlookers gathered outside to watch the event.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the world’s most powerful rocket, right here,” Nasa chief Bill Nelson told the crowd, gesturing toward the spacecraft minutes after the rollout started. “Humanity will soon embark on a new era of exploration.”
The rollout, paving the way for Nasa’s uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon and back, was delayed last month by a series of technical issues now resolved.