The giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is set to lift off from Nasa’s Cape Canaveral complex in Florida at 8.33am. ET (1:33 p.m. UK time) aboard an unmanned Orion spacecraft designed to carry up to six astronauts to the Moon and beyond. The 1.3m-long Artemis I test mission – scheduled to last 42 days – aims to carry the Orion rover 40,000 miles from the far side of the moon, departing from the same facility that carried the Apollo lunar missions half a century ago. NASA’s Space Shuttle program launched manned missions into Earth orbit for a relatively short time before it was discontinued in 2011. Private US space companies such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX have since been carrying out missions similar to the bus schedule. But Artemis I’s job is to start letting Nasa know whether the moon can act as a springboard to eventually send astronauts to Mars, which would really bring the stuff of science fiction to life. US taxpayers are expected to put up $93 billion to fund the Artemis program. But in the days leading up to Monday’s launch, Nasa managers insisted Americans would find the cost justified. “This is now the Artemis generation,” Nasa administrator and former space shuttle astronaut Bill Nelson said recently. “We were in the generation of Apollo. This is a new generation. This is a new type of astronaut.” For Monday’s debut, the only “crew members” on Orion are mannequins intended to let Nasa assess its next-generation spacesuits and radiation levels — as well as a Snoopy soft toy meant to depict zero gravity floating around the capsule.
