NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) is the most technologically advanced rocket ever built.
SLS stole the title of the world’s most powerful operational rocket from Falcon Heavy on November 16 with its inaugural launch as part of the Artemis I Mission. It sent an uncrewed Orion capsule on a 25-day trip around the moon and back which concluded on December 11 with the successful splashdown and recovery of the Orion spacecraft.
The SLS rocket generated a massive 8.8 million pounds of thrust at lift-off, making it the most powerful rocket in the world.
Orion traveled more than 1.4 million miles during this test flight
The uncrewed test flight was launched to validate the rocket component and systems in preparation for future missions with astronauts on board to explore destinations far into the solar system. After studying the post-flight data, including 31 terabytes of imagery data, NASA officials indicated that SLS systems performed exceptionally and gave SLS a high score for mission success.
Now, NASA has stated that SLS is ready to launch astronauts on the same journey for its Artemis II mission.
Artemis II will be the first crewed flight test of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion, paving the way for human exploration to the Moon and Mars.
The Artemis II mission will send NASA astronauts around the moon in 2024 on a roughly 10-day mission.
If all goes well with Artemis II, NASA’s Artemis III lunar landing mission will put humans on the moon in 2025 for the first time in more than 50 years.
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