August 29 marks the launch of NASA’s moon rockets. However, September 2nd and September 5th are also in the eye, just in case. This is about 50 years after the famous Apollo 1 mission that allowed astronaut Neil Armstrong to become the first man to set foot on the moon. Since then, NASA has been planning to land more people on the moon and this time the first women and people of color will be part of their new quest through the Artemis 1 mission. The astronauts have already been identified and 9 of them are men and 9 are women. Speaking of Artemis 1, it is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration of the Moon and Mars. Artemis 1 will be the first comprehensive test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and ground systems at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Here’s what Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager at NASA headquarters in Washington, had to say about this mission, “This is a mission that will really do what hasn’t been done and learn what isn’t known.” . He also added that it will “pave a path for humans to follow on the next Orion flight, pushing the envelope in preparation for this mission.” Regarding the launch of NASA’s Mega Moon Rocket, NASA officials said the SLS met about 90 percent of its pre-launch goals, with only a few turns left to go. One problem encountered was faulty seals that allowed hydrogen to leak, but this has been fixed. At 322 feet (98 meters) tall when topped with the Orion crew capsule, the SLS is taller than the Statue of Liberty and weighs a whopping 5.75 million pounds (2.6 million kilograms), according to NASA. While the SLS is slightly smaller than NASA’s Saturn V rocket, used during the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, it is significantly more powerful, capable of delivering about 8.8 million pounds (4 million kg) of thrust, or 15 % more than Saturn. V’s 7.5 million pounds (3.4 million kilograms) NASA said.
