space travel
Nasa is getting ready for the moon with a new rocket system
NASA also wants to put a woman on the moon in 2024. Photo: Chris O’meara/AP/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
With the new Nasa rocket system, US astronauts should finally fly to the moon again in 2024. The system is now ready for testing at the Cape Canaveral spaceport.
The US space agency Nasa has deployed its new rocket system for the first time at the Cape Canaveral spaceport.
The system, consisting of the “Space Launch System” rocket and the “Orion” capsule, was driven out of the factory building in the US state of Florida on a type of transport trolley. In an action lasting several hours, it should then slowly be brought the approximately six kilometers to the starting point. However, before the system is to be tested unmanned for the first time in May at the earliest, there are still numerous tests to be carried out.
With the “Artemis” mission, US astronauts should actually land on the moon for the first time in almost 50 years by 2024, including the first woman. Due to numerous delays, this landing is now scheduled to take place in 2025 at the earliest. The mission will take four astronauts to lunar orbit in the Orion spacecraft, where two of them will transfer to a SpaceX lander for the final approach to the moon. A kind of space station is also to be created on the moon and used as a basis for a manned flight to Mars – but that will only happen in the distant future.