According to NBC News, NASA will launch the next-generation mega-rocket Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion capsule, designed to carry the rocket, into space for a test flight next Monday in Florida.
6 WEEKS TEST FLIGHT
The capsule and rocket combination SLS-Orion spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, returning to Earth after a 6-week Artemis 1 test flight around the Moon.
With the Artemis program, NASA aims to once again achieve the success it achieved with the Apollo Project, which it implemented in the 1960s and 1970s.
The flight aims to challenge the SLS-Orion spacecraft, thought to be the world’s most complex and powerful rocket ship, to see if it’s ready to carry astronauts.
The SLS is stated to represent the largest new vertical launch system NASA has built since the Saturn V rockets it flew during the Apollo Project.
It is stated that the design, construction, testing and ground facilities of the SLS-Orion spacecraft have cost NASA at least $37 billion so far.
Named after Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, NASA aims to send astronauts back to the Moon in 2025 at the earliest, and establish a long-term Moon colony by serving as a springboard to more ambitious space journeys aimed at sending humans to Mars. aims. (AA)