NASA's Space Launch System - what next?

NASA’s Space Launch System will be the most powerful rocket ever, but where do the latest setbacks leave the mission? Mark Broadbent reports

More than 50 years after the last Apollo space mission, NASA’s Artemis programme intends to land astronauts on the Moon in the mid-2020s. To pave the way, NASA plans to launch Artemis I to an orbit 40,000 miles beyond the Moon. The subsequent Artemis II will send astronauts in orbit around the Moon before Artemis III lands on the Moon’s south pole, currently planned for 2025 or 2026. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) will make all this possible. Known colloquially as the ‘mega-rocket’ or ‘moon rocket’, the enormous 322ft SLS stands taller than the Statue of Liberty.

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