NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket emerged from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center around 10 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0200 GMT Wednesday) for an overnight ride to launch pad 39B. The rocket arrived at the seaside launch complex about 10 hours later. The Artemis 1 mission is set for launch Aug. 29 on its inaugural test flight carrying NASA’s Orion spacecraft around the moon.
NASA plans to begin moving the first Space Launch System moon rocket to its launch pad in Florida Tuesday night after completing tests of the rocket’s flight termination system and winning an extension from range safety officials to certify the destruct mechanism’s batteries throughout the mission’s upcoming launch period.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket and 52 more Starlink internet satellites Tuesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The commercial mission took off bound for low Earth orbit at 10:14 p.m. EDT (0214 GMT), and the Falcon 9’s reusable first stage landed on an offshore drone ship. The launch team bypassed a launch opportunity earlier Tuesday evening due to unfavorable upper level winds.
SpaceX continues to launch Falcon 9 rockets from Launch Complex 39A in Florida as construction work advances on the nearby tower for the company’s next-generation Starship rocket. Overnight Tuesday, SpaceX rolled another Falcon 9 to pad 39A for liftoff with the next batch of Starlink internet satellites, just hours after another section of the Starship gantry tower arrived at the pad.
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