NASA’s giant new moon rocket is finally on the launch pad, although it has yet to be determined when it will finally leave Earth.
For the first time Thursday night, a fully-stacked Space Launch System rocket and its associated launch tower emerged from the Vehicle Assembly Building — essentially a massive rocket garage — at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The rocket, with an Orion capsule on it where astronauts will one day sit, was carried slowly atop a giant caterpillar track to the launch site, more than four miles away.
“Leaving the VAB is truly an iconic moment for this vehicle,” Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA headquarters, said at a news conference Monday. “To be here for a new generation of a reconnaissance-class super heavy-lift vehicle, Thursday will be a day to remember.”
The journey took more than 10 hours. The rocket reached its destination at 4:15 a.m. Friday, NASA said.
Thursday and Friday’s scene was reminiscent of NASA’s Apollo era half a century ago, when the Saturn 5 rockets used for moon landings made similar trips to the launch pad. The crawler used Thursday was the same one that carried the Saturn 5s, albeit refurbished and modernized for Artemis, NASA’s new program to one day return astronauts to the lunar surface.
The rocket will sit for the next two weeks as engineers examine various systems on the rocket and launch pad, known as Launch Complex 39B. If all goes well, the tests will culminate in a countdown in early April where hundreds of thousands of liters of cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen will flow into the propellant tanks.
But the engines won’t ignite and the rocket won’t leave the ground. This will be what NASA calls a “wet dress rehearsal” — wet because it includes the fill of the liquid propellants — and it will be the last major run before a launch can take place. The countdown will stop with approximately 10 seconds remaining without the engines igniting.
After the wet dress rehearsal, the rocket makes the return journey to the Vehicle Assembly Building.
The next time the rocket emerges, it will be launched. NASA officials say they want to see how the rehearsal goes before deciding when it could be — perhaps as early as this summer.
The first mission has no astronauts on board. The crewless test flight, known as Artemis 1, will first orbit the Earth before the second stage engine pushes it out of low Earth orbit to the Moon. The Orion capsule will then detach from the second stage and enter orbit around the moon a few days later.
The mission, which will last approximately three weeks, will end with Orion crashing into the Pacific Ocean.
Both the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
In 2024, NASA has planned Artemis 2, a mission to send astronauts around the moon and back for the first time since 1972. After that, another crew of astronauts is due to land on the moon with Artemis 3, a mission NASA has planned for 2025, though that timeline could be delayed again.
The moon landing mission requires the use of a separate landing craft, the giant Starship rocket built by SpaceX. Starship may also make its first test flight to space this year.