Space Launch System

The mobile launch platform for NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center Friday for inspections and repairs after liftoff of the Artemis 1 moon mission last month, setting the stage for upgrades to the 380-foot-tall structure before the first crewed Artemis moon flight scheduled for 2024.

NASA’s huge Space Launch System moon rocket finally took off from Florida early Wednesday after a decade in development, sending an unpiloted Orion crew capsule toward lunar orbit on a 25-day test flight to lay a path for astronauts to return to the moon for the first time since 1972.

NASA’s oft-delayed Artemis 1 lunar test flight finally got off the ground at 1:47 a.m. EST (0647 GMT) Wednesday with the inaugural blastoff of NASA’s huge Space Launch System moon rocket from Kennedy Space Center. The unpiloted demonstration mission will pave the way for future human missions to the moon.

NASA managers cleared the agency’s leak-bedeviled Artemis moon rocket for the start of another countdown early Monday, but engineers must resolve questions about hurricane-damaged insulation before the huge booster can be cleared for blastoff on an unpiloted moonshot.

NASA’s $4.1 billion Artemis moon rocket, exposed to the elements atop its Kennedy Space Center launch pad, was rocked by high winds and driving rain early Thursday as Hurricane Nicole roared ashore just south of the spaceport.