NASA's Artemis I Moon Rocket | Kennedy Space Center

NASA's Artemis I Moon Rocket | Kennedy Space Center

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket arrives at Launch Pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 18, 2022, for a wet dress rehearsal ahead of the uncrewed Artemis I launch. The rocket, with the Orion spacecraft atop, was carried from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the pad—a 4.2-mile journey that took nearly 11 hours to complete—by the agency’s crawler-transporter 2. Artemis I will test SLS and Orion as an integrated system prior to crewed flights to the Moon. Through Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone on the way to Mars. Artemis I launch is currently scheduled for spring 2022.

The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight test that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate NASA's commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.  It will travel 280,000 miles from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the Moon over the course of about a three-week mission. Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.

Learn more about Artemis I at:

NASA's Artemis Program:

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1

Read the Artemis Plan (74-page PDF Free Download): 

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/artemis_plan-20200921.pdf

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS)

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html

NASA's Orion Spacecraft

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/about/index.html

Caption & Image Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Image Date: March 18, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Space #Moon #Moonlight #Artemis #ArtemisI #Rocket #Orion #Spacecraft #SLS #Boeing #DeepSpace #LockheedMartin #Astronauts #Mars #JourneyToMars #Science #Engineering #Technology #Exploration #SolarSystem #LaunchComplex39B #KSC #Kennedy #Florida #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education