NASA's massive new rocket is poised to make its first journey to a launchpad on Thursday ahead of a battery of tests that will clear it to blast off to the Moon this summer.

It will leave the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building at 5:00 pm Eastern Time (2100 GMT) and begin its glacially slow, 11-hour crawl on a transporter to the hallowed Launch Complex 39B, four miles (6.5 kilometers) away.

Here's what you need to know.

- Huge rocket, huge cost -

With the Orion crew capsule fixed on top, the Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1 stands 322 feet (98 meters) high -- taller than the Statue of Liberty, but a little smaller than the 363 feet Saturn V rockets that powered the Apollo missions to the Moon.

Despite this, it will produce 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust (39.1 Meganewtons), 15 percent more than the Saturn V, meaning it's expected to be the world's most powerful rocket at the time it begins operating.

"This is a flagship rocket you're about to see, it's a symbol of our country," Tom Whitmeyer, associate administrator for exploration systems development, told reporters on a call this week.

A symbol that comes at an estimated price tag of $4.1 billion per launch for the first four Artemis missions, NASA Inspector General Paul Martin told Congress this month.

Once it reaches the iconic launch pad, where 53 Space Shuttles took off, engineers have roughly two more weeks' worth of checks before what's known as the "wet dress rehearsal."

On the morning of April 3, the SLS team will load more than 700,000 gallons (3.2 million liters) of cryogenic propellant into the rocket and practice every phase of launch countdown, stopping ten seconds before blast off.

The propellant will then be drained to demonstrate safely standing down a launch attempt.

- To the Moon and beyond -

NASA is targeting May as the earliest window for Artemis-1, an uncrewed lunar mission that will be the first integrated flight for SLS and Orion.

SLS will first place Orion into a low Earth orbit, and then, using its upper stage, perform what's called a trans-lunar injection.

This maneuver is necessary to send Orion 280,000 miles beyond Earth and 40,000 miles beyond the Moon -- further than any spaceship capable of carrying humans has ventured.

On its three-week mission, Orion will deploy 10 shoebox size satellites known as CubeSats to gather information on the deep space environment.

It will journey around the far side of the Moon and finally make its way back to Earth, where its heat shield will be tested against the atmosphere.

Splashdown takes place in the Pacific, off the coast of California.

Artemis-2 will be the first crewed test, flying around the Moon but not landing, while Artemis-3, now planned for no earlier than 2025, will see the first woman and first person of color touch down on the lunar south pole.

NASA wants to use the Moon as a proving ground for testing technologies necessary for a Mars mission, sometime in the 2030s, using a Block 2 evolution of the SLS.

- SLS v Starship -

NASA calls SLS a "super heavy lift exploration class vehicle." The only currently operational super heavy rocket is SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, which is smaller.

Elon Musk's company is also developing its own deep space rocket, the fully reusable Starship, which he has said should be ready for an orbital test this year.

Starship would be both bigger and more powerful than SLS: 394 feet tall with 17 million pounds of thrust. It could also be considerably cheaper.

The tycoon has suggested that within years, the cost per launch could be as little as $10 million.

Direct comparisons are complicated by the fact that while SLS is designed to fly direct to its destinations, SpaceX foresees putting a Starship into orbit, and then refueling it with another Starship so it can continue its journey, to extend range and payload.

NASA has also contracted a version of Starship as a lunar descent vehicle for Artemis.

Other super heavy rockets under development include Blue Origin's New Glenn, China's Long March 9 and Russia's Yenisei.

Watch live: NASA's new moon rocket to emerge for first time in launch pad rollout
Washington DC (UPI) Mar 17, 2021 - NASA's towering moon rocket, the SLS, is expected to emerge from its assembly building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, providing a new look at the agency's biggest space vehicle since the Apollo era.

NASA held a day of events and media opportunities at the space center leading up to rollout around 5:30 p.m. EDT. The rollout comes as NASA prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission, which launched April 16, 1972.

Thousands of onlookers gathered along the route of the rocket ahead of its rollout, including NASA employees, contractors and their families.

The historic importance of the moment is plain to astronauts and everyone working on the massive rocket, astronaut Randy Bresnick told UPI in an interview Thursday at the space center.

"To see this magnificent beast come out of the spacecraft cocoon, so to speak, to emerge from a building built for moon rockets -- that's exciting and so important," said Bresnick, as he looked at the yawning high-bay door where the SLS will emerge.

Bresnick flew on the shuttle Atlantis in 2009 and on a Russian Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station. He's not assigned to any flights on SLS but he said all astronauts hope for the chance.

He said the space shuttle was an awe-inspiring vehicle, but was much shorter than the Apollo rockets, whereas SLS is only about 40 feet shorter than the Apollo-era Saturn Vs.

"Overall, I expect the ride on SLS will be smoother than the shuttle because the shuttle had wings, and was mounted on the side of the fuel tank," Bresnick said. "SLS will be bumpy as the solid boosters fire, but after that, it's just an aerodynamic capsule and abort module on top of the fuel tank."

If all goes according to NASA's schedule, the rocket will remain at its launch pad, Complex 39A, until a fully fueled rehearsal in early April. NASA hopes to launch the rocket, without a crew, to and around the moon in May.

Thursday's rollout is just the start of the Artemis-era activities at the launch pad. NASA already has three Orion capsules and two more SLS rockets under construction in preparation to launch people on the next Artemis mission, Jeremy Parsons, NASA deputy program manager for exploration ground systems, told UPI.

"We want to make sure this vehicle is fully safe to go put astronauts on the moon," Parsons said. "We've tested it and even fired the engines, and now we want to make sure everything works in this integrated environment."

He said NASA crews will monitor sensors all over the rocket for vibration impact during the rollout, to ensure it arrives safely after its slow journey, which is expected to take up to 12 hours to cover a few miles from VAB to the pad.

The space agency has long planned to return to the moon and even fly astronauts to Mars, but since 2004 such plans have encountered repeated delays and lack of necessary funding from Congress.

Seeing the rocket fully assembled and on the launch pad will be a thrilling milestone for NASA's employees and contractors, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, said in a press conference Monday.

"It'll be something really special for me, and I know for everyone that's worked on this, when we get an opportunity to see it," she said.

The rollout will be the first time a NASA rocket so large -- 322 feet tall -- has moved to a launch pad since Apollo 17's Saturn V rocket did so before launching astronauts to the moon later in 1972.

Space shuttles also made the same roll from the VAB to the launch pad from 1981 to 2011, but the new moon rocket will tower above the shuttle height, which was 184 feet when stacked on its large exterior fuel tank.

The Artemis I mission is to fly further past the moon than any spacecraft designed for humans in history.

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NASA prepares to roll out giant Artemis moon rocket
Washington DC (UPI) Mar 14, 2021
After years of delay, NASA plans to roll its massive new SLS moon rocket out of the historic Vehicle Assembly Building and onto it's launch pad for the first time Thursday. The rollout will be the first time a NASA rocket so large - 322 feet tall - has moved to a launch pad since Apollo 17's Saturn V rocket did so before launching astronauts to the moon in 1972. Space shuttles also made the same roll from the VAB to the launch pad from 1981 to 2011, but the new moon rocket will tower a ... read more

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