![]() Mandated to build the big rocket, NASA cobbled together exploration programs that would use it. Members of Congress had no particular design in mind, but they demanded that NASA rummage through crates of old space shuttle parts whenever possible to build this thing, and required that it launch by 2016. Indeed, it will send astronauts farther into space than any human has gone before. That flight will be the first to lift astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit since 1972. Its first crewed mission is planned for 2023. It is expected to lift a capsule called Orion on a path around the moon and back. The rocket’s next stop will be Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and as early as November, the launchpad. The test appears to have gone well, following an earlier test in January that cut off after about 67 seconds because of errors and equipment problems. ![]() On Thursday, NASA set out for a second time to prove that the Space Launch System is ready to take flight, conducting a continuous “hot fire” of its engines for more than eight minutes. The launch vehicle is central to the agency’s Artemis program to return humans to the lunar surface, and later, land them on Mars. ![]() The rocket is taller than the Statue of Liberty, pedestal and all, and is the cornerstone of NASA’s astronaut ambitions. Framed by the industrial test platform to which it is mounted, the Space Launch System’s core section is a gleaming, apricot-colored column cast into relief by twisting pipes and steel latticework. Update, March 18: This essay has been revised to reflect that the Space Launch System completed its second hot-fire test.Įleven years in the making, the most powerful NASA-built rocket since the Apollo program at last stands upright.
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