NASA aims to send its first Space Launch System rocket to the moon in a few months

While NASA aims to send its first-ever Space Launch System rocket to the moon in just a few months, things are coming together for rocket No. 2.

While the combined hardware of the SLS core stage and solid rocket boosters along with the Orion capsule await launch from Kennedy Space Center for Artemis I, the core stage for Artemis II, the mission that will send humans back to orbit the moon targeting 2024, is begin assembled at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

The largest part of the core stage, a 130-foot-tall liquid hydrogen tank, was moved into the vertical assembly area at Michoud on Jan. 30, preparing to be mated to a 66-foot-long forward assembly, which combines the forward skirt, intertank and liquid oxygen tank, and arrived earlier in January to the facility. The core stage’s main contractor Boeing will join the two with only the engine section to come.

That section, which includes four RS-25 engines developed by Aerojet Rocketdyne from existing engines used in the Space Shuttle program, combined with the rest of the core stage will see it stand at 212 feet tall.

The core stage holds more than 700,000 gallons of propellants to power more than 2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. The two solid rocket boosters developed by Northrop Grumman combine with the core stage to give SLS 8.8 million pounds of thrust, which is more powerful than the Saturn V rockets used during the Apollo missions. The Artemis I launch would become the most powerful rocket to ever launch from Earth, at least until Elon Musk’s SpaceX manages to fly its new Starship with Super Heavy rocket, which would nearly double the power of SLS.

NASA remains focused, though, on getting the hardware together for the next two Artemis missions, both set to fly with humans.

Artemis II will combine the SLS and a crewed Orion capsule that is targeting May 2024 for liftoff. It will fly to and orbit the moon but not land. Artemis III aims to send the first astronauts back to the lunar surface, including the first woman, in 2025.

Artemis I still has to go through a wet dress rehearsal at KSC, during which it’s rolled out to Launch Pad 39-B from the Vehicle Assembly Building and run through a simulated countdown including filling the core stage with propellants, but not igniting them. NASA will then drain the propellants and roll the rocket back to the VAB to analyze the test. If all goes well, NASA will then send it back to the launch pad for what it aims to be its last time on Earth.

NASA said the wet dress rehearsal is targeting March, and potential launch windows are being examined for April and May.