NASA’s new moon rocket will return to launchpad in June

The SLS moon rocket will return to the launchpad early June for final testing, the space agency announced at the weekend.

Several issues surfaced during the process at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which led to the abandonment of the wet dress rehearsal.

A dress rehearsal involves filling the rocket with fuel and performing a countdown as if it were a real launch. Engineers returned the rocket to the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building because of technical issues.

NASA said recently in a message on its website that engineers successfully completed work on a number of items observed during the previous wet dress rehearsal test.

The space agency said that the team updated software to address issues encountered during the fueling stage.

The first woman and first person of color will be on the moon before the end of the decade, thanks to NASA's SLS transportation system. There will be two test flights before that. Artemis II will send a crew on a flight to the moon, while Artemis I will send an uncrewed flight. The first humans on the lunar surface since the Apollo flights five decades ago will be on the Artemis III mission.

NASA expects to launch the Artemis I mission using the SLS rocket and Orion in August this year, with launch windows available in the first 10 days of the month and also in the final week, if the upcoming wet dress rehearsal goes to plan.

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