WASHINGTON: Nasa’s massive new rocket is poised to make its first journey to a launchpad on Friday ahead of a battery of tests that will clear it to blast off to the Moon this summer.

It will leave the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building at 5pm Eastern Time (2am pst Friday) and begin its glacially slow, 11-hour crawl on a transporter to the hallowed Launch Complex 39B, 6.5 kilometres away. With the Orion crew capsule fixed on top, the Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1 stands 322 feet high — taller than the Statue of Liberty, but a little smaller than the 363 feet Saturn V rockets that powered the Apollo missions to the Moon.

“This is a flagship rocket you’re about to see, it’s a symbol of our country,” Tom Whitmeyer, associate administrator for exploration systems development, told reporters on a call this week.

Once it reaches the iconic launch pad, where 53 Space Shuttles took off, engineers have roughly two more weeks worth of checks before what’s known as the “wet dress rehearsal,” the final prelaunch test.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2022