The Artemis 1 moon rocket is NASA's first Space Launch System supporter.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — NASA's new mega rocket for its Artemis 1 moon charge is on the way to the launch pad.
On Thursday (March 17) at 547p.m. EDT (2147 GMT), with the largest doors in the world wide open at the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) then on Florida's Space Coast, the rocket that will launch the coming astronauts to the moon began rolling out to the launch pad.
The rocket — NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket ever built — rolled toward KSC's Pad 39B with the Orion spacecraft on top, both riding on the agency's massive "crawler." The hauler vehicle, officially called the crawler-transporter 2 (CT-2), carried the 5.5 million-pound (2.5 million kilograms) SLS and 50,000-pound (23,000 kg) Orion capsule at about 0.8 mph (1.3 kph) toward the pad on a journey expected to last about 11 hours.
"At these launch pads, remarkable individuals achieve unthinkable things," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a live webcast of the rollout. "Today, a new generation — not the Apollo generation, but it's the Artemis generation — is preparing to reach new frontiers. This generation will return astronauts to the moon, and this time, we will land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface to conduct groundbreaking science."
NASA's Artemis program will pave the way for humanity's giant leap — future missions to Mars," Nelson added. "There's no doubt that we are in a golden era of human space exploration, discovery and ingenuity in space. And it all begins with Artemis 1."
