People haven’t been to the moon in 50 years but an unmanned NASA rocket launch scheduled for Monday will be the first step toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface and eventually traveling to Mars.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is scheduled to launch for the first time ever from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The rocket will propel the Orion crew capsule – with no crew on board – 450,000 kilometers from Earth into a distant orbit around the Moon.
The capsule will “fall” in October off the coast of San Diego. Its launch is the first of NASA’s Artemis lunar program.
The 42-day mission starting Monday aims to push the capsule to its limits to ensure it is ready to carry a crew on future missions.
The next Artemis mission, scheduled for no earlier than 2024, is set to carry a crew around the Moon.
By 2025 or later, Artemis III is expected to land the first woman and the first black person on the Moon.