By MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s massive new moon rocket headed toward the launch pad Saturday in preparation for the first astronaut lunar flight in more than half a century.
The round trip could take off as soon as February.
The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket began its slow 1 mph (1.6 km/h) crawl from Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building at dawn. The 6-kilometer (4-mile) journey could last until nightfall.
Thousands of space center workers and their families gathered in the predawn chill to witness the long-awaited event, delayed for years. They gathered before the launch of the Space Launch System rocket from the building, built in the 1960s to house the Saturn V rockets that sent 24 astronauts to the Moon during the Apollo program. The cheering crowd was led by new NASA administrator Jared Isaacman and the four astronauts assigned to the mission.
Weighing five million kilograms (11 million pounds), the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule on top were moved aboard a massive transporter that was used during the Apollo and shuttle eras. It was upgraded to support the additional weight of the SLS rocket.
The first and only other SLS launch — which sent an empty Orion capsule into orbit around the Moon — took place in November 2022.
“This feels very different, putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the Moon,” NASA’s John Honeycutt said on the eve of the rocket’s deployment.
Heat shield damage and other capsule problems during the initial test flight required extensive analysis and testing, delaying this first crewed flight to the Moon until now. Astronauts will not orbit the Moon or land on it. That big leap will be made on the third flight of the Artemis series in a few years.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch — veteran NASA astronauts with spaceflight experience — will be joined on the 10-day mission by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot awaiting his first rocket ride.
They will be the first people to fly to the Moon since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the triumphant lunar landing program in 1972. Twelve astronauts walked the lunar surface, starting with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969.
NASA is hoping to conduct a refueling test of the SLS rocket on the pad in early February before confirming a launch date. Depending on the outcome of the test, “that will ultimately set our path to launch,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said Friday.
The space agency has just five days to launch in the first half of February before moving into March.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
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