NASA is making progress on their SLS rocket, the craft intended to take people back to the moon. On February 24, NASA test-fired their SR-25 engine for the third time. It ran for eight and a half minutes, the same duration as is necessary to push the SLS to space, briefly throttling it up all the way to 113 percent power.
Following this success, NASA made an update regarding the roadmap for the spacecraft and the Artemis moon program. First up is what's referred to as a dress rehearsal scheduled for March 17. During this rehearsal, the craft will be moved to the launch pad, fueled up and the entire launch sequence will be run except for the last ten seconds, at which point the engines would ignite during an actual launch. This will of course occur to verify that everything runs smoothly.
Following the rehearsal, the craft will be rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building for final launch preparations. No date for the Artemis 1 mission has been set as of yet, although it's been confirmed that April is no longer feasible and current plans are to launch in late May.
Space Launch System
The SLS is a super-heavy launch vehicle designed to take humanity beyond the earth's orbit. Touted as "The world's most powerful rocket", it can carry a higher mass and larger volume payload than any other vehicle according to NASA themselves.
The vehicle isn't just designed to carry humans to the moon or even Mars, NASA mentions that it's intended to for example carry robots to places like Saturn and Jupiter. The SLS is designed to evolve over time and a supply chain is being prepared to enable a whole series of launches with the craft.
Jakob Holgersson
