Now just under two weeks from launch, NASA’s Artemis I rocket has reached its launch pad. Late Tuesday night, the space agency began directing the super heavy-lift launch vehicle to Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. It arrived at the platform around 7:30 Wednesday morning. Artemis I will be the first launch of NASA’s Artemis program, an unmanned flight that will orbit the moon and come back to Earth some 25 days later.
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If all goes to plan, Artemis I will launch on the morning of August 29th.
The Artemis program is one of the most extensive missions NASA has ever undertaken, and it will eventually see the outfit build a base for the United States to operate on the surface of our lunar satellite. Should Artemis I be successful and allow NASA to send manned flights to space, officials hope to send astronauts to the moon by 2025, which would mark the first lunar landing since 1972.
The Orion space capsule tops the Artemis I rocket and will be the piece that splashes down somewhere off the Pacific Coast upon re-entry.
“With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before,” the official Artemis program mission statement reads. “We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.”
Cover photo by Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images
