NASA rocket that will be used for the first manned mission to the moon leaves the factory

The first stage of the powerful SLS rocket that will be used on NASA’s Artemis II lunar mission has left a factory in New Orleans for the journey to central Florida (USA).

The 65-meter-tall stage, manufactured by Boeing, left NASA’s Michoud assembly center in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Tuesday, to begin a nearly 1,500-kilometer journey to its final destination, the Kennedy Space Center.

There, this stage will be assembled into another rocket and the Orion capsule, inside which the four Artemis 2 crew members will travel, a ten-day mission scheduled to launch in September 2025 that will orbit the Moon, but not land.

The launch of the SLS rocket stage to Florida coincided with the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, which occurred on July 16, 1969.

“With Artemis, we set our sights on doing something incredibly big and complex that will inspire a new generation and advance our science efforts,” said Kathryn Koerner, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.

Before receiving the spacecraft, the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket will undergo additional equipment at Kennedy, including a pair of twin boosters. The Orion spacecraft is already in Florida.

The rocket, the largest ever built by NASA and powered by four powerful RS-25 engines, also has two massive tanks that together hold more than 733,000 gallons of super-cooled liquid fuel.

During the launch process, the SLS system will operate for no more than 8 minutes, during which time it will push the Orion spacecraft out of the Earth’s atmosphere and place it in an orbit toward the natural satellite.

NASA’s Artemis program marks a new chapter in space exploration and aims to lay the foundation for a permanent human presence on the Moon.

Artemis I, an unmanned test flight of the Orion spacecraft, successfully completed a round trip in 2022. After Artemis 2 in 2025, the US space agency plans to launch in September 2026 what would be the first mission to reach the moon’s surface in more than 50 years, Artemis 3.