NASA prepares for debut lunar rocket launch

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will begin transporting the giant Space Launch System lunar rocket to the launch pad Tuesday night. The rocket is scheduled to make its debut test flight in late August.

The rocket is scheduled to take off on its first human-free space flight on August 29. This important demonstration flight has been delayed for a long time. NASA is launching a rocket to the moon as part of the multibillion-dollar Artemis program, an effort by the United States to bring humans back to the surface of the moon to practice for future Mars missions.

The Space Launch System, the development of which has been led by Boeing for the past decade, is scheduled to roll out of the assembly shop at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 9 p.m. local time and begin its journey to the launch pad. Deployment takes about 11 hours.

On top of the rocket is the Orion astronaut module, built by Lockheed Martin. Once the rocket is in space, Orion must separate from it, take people to lunar orbit and dock with another spacecraft that will take astronauts to the surface of the moon.

The Artemis 1 mission, which will begin Aug. 29, will have no crew in the capsule. Orion is scheduled to orbit the moon and return to Earth 42 days later.