CAPE CANAVERAL, Aug 29 — Launch teams at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida spent a final full day of preparations ahead of today’s planned liftoff of Nasa’s giant...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Aug 29 — Launch teams at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida spent a final full day of preparations ahead of today’s planned liftoff of Nasa’s giant next-generation rocket on its debut test flight, kicking off the agency’s Artemis moon-to-Mars programme 50 years after the end of Apollo.
“Everything to date looks good from a vehicle perspective,” said Jeff Spaulding, senior Nasa test director for the landmark mission, called Artemis I. “We are excited, the vehicle is ready, it looks great.” Although lightning rods at the launch site were struck during a storm on Saturday, Spaulding said he has not “seen anything on the ground systems that give us any concerns.” Nasa said there was no damage to the spacecraft or launch facilities.
The SLS-Orion combo, standing 322 feet tall, form the centrepiece of the US space agency’s successor to the Apollo moon programme of the 1960s and 1970s. The Artemis programme seeks to eventually establish a long-term lunar base as a stepping stone to even more ambitious astronaut voyages to Mars, a goal that Nasa officials have said will probably take until at least the late 2030s to achieve.