Watch the launch of the NASA Mega Moon rocket – an amazing slow motion video

SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft atop launched the agency’s Artemis I flight test from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Moon rocket and spacecraft lifted off at 1:47 a.m. EST on Wednesday, November 16.

NASA’s Artemis I mission is the first integrated test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems: the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and supporting ground systems. The mission is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to the Moon. With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.

Credit: NASA

SLS represents a bold new vision for NASA’s human spaceflight program. To enable a new generation – the Artemis generation – of manned missions to the Moon, the SLS rocket uses proven propulsion systems consisting of solid-fuel rocket boosters and liquid-liquid RS-25 engines combined with a new center stage.

The SLS uses larger solid rocket boosters than the Space Shuttles and RS-25 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engines that operate at higher thrust levels and with new controllers.

The main stage, an entirely new development consisting of fuel tanks, avionics and related equipment, houses four RS-25s and provides attachment points for the boosters. An intermediate cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) above the main stage provides propulsion in space. The launcher stage adapter partially covers the ICPS and changes the diameter of the rocket. The Orion Stage Adapter, located between the SLS and the Orion crew craft, houses the CubeSat payload for the Artemis I mission and connects the rocket to the Orion spacecraft.