Time.news – Man’s adventure towards the Moon begins again. NASA has launched the SLS carrier rocket, the most powerful ever built, with the Orion spacecraft, which took off from the Kennedy Space Center. Even today the launch was delayed almost an hour and there had already been two attempts postponed in September.
This is the first mission of the Artemis program to bring astronauts back to the moon, for now there are only mannequins on board.
The Artemis 1 mission, an unmanned test flight, represents the first step in the US space agency’s plan to build a lasting presence on the Moon and learn from it to prepare for a future trip to Mars in the 2030s.
Named after Apollo’s sister in Greek mythology, the new space program arrives 50 years since man last set foot on lunar soil.
It is the first launch of the Space Launch System rocket, 32 stories tall and the most powerful ever built. The lift-off occurred less than a week after Hurricane Nicole passed, which the rocket endured outdoors on its launch pad.
The hurricane damaged a thin strip of caulk-like material surrounding the Orion capsule atop the rocket, making it more streamlined.
Some 100,000 people flocked to the coast to watch the launch, with the rocket lighting up the night sky.