The predawn sky over Florida's space coast lit up as NASA's new 322-foot-tall moon rocket roared off its launch pad with a few mannequins but no astronauts strapped into a crew capsule.
The test flight of the white, bell-shaped capsule is expected to take it around the moon and back in 25 days. The journey will bring NASA one step closer to its goal of returning humans to the moon.
The team at Kennedy Space Center sent the rocket on its way and the launch director said she might be speechless. You have made your mark in the history of the world. You are part of a new thing. It doesn't happen a lot, once in a career. We are all part of a very special thing.
The maximum distance from the Earth to the moon will surpass the record set by the Apollo 13 mission.
The capsule will return to Earth faster and hotter than any other human-rated craft. It will go down in the ocean off the coast of San Diego. In a couple of years, this massive rocket and capsule could be used to send people into space.
NASA hopes to put the first woman and first person of color on the moon by the year 2025.
The agency named its lunar program Artemis after the twin sister of Apollo and hopes to regain some of the glory of its Apollo-era moon landings. The last Apollo mission to the moon took place in December of 1972 when the venerableSaturn V rocket thundered up from the Florida launch site.
Technical problems and two hurricanes prevented NASA from launching its Artemis rocket.
A previous attempt to launch this rocket had to be stopped because of a hydrogen leak. NASA didn't figure out its root cause.
The "red crew" of three workers had to go to the bottom of the rocket to fix the hydrogen leak. According to part of an exchange captured on a hot mic, they tightened some bolts on a valve that appeared to be loose. The loss of signal at a critical radar site was one of the problems that bedeviled the team.
The space agency has been working on this launch for a long time.
Congress told NASA to build a giant new rocket, one capable of venturing to deep space, and to use technology from the old shuttles in order to support the nation's space industry.
This rocket has taken a long time to build, and it's also been costly.
According to NASA's inspector general, each of the first three flights will cost more than $4 billion.
A lot of people in the spaceflight community feel that the cost of the Artemis effort is unsustainable.
Even though there are mixed feelings surrounding this rocket, it may be a sign that NASA is making progress towards having the moon as a real destination for humans.
Since Eugene Cernan said "we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind", space enthusiasts have wanted that for a long time.
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