NASA Gives Media First Look at ‘Most Powerful Rocket in the the World’ at Michoud

NEW ORLEANS – On Dec. 9, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration invited media and social media users to see the “most powerful rocket in the world” at its Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Workers are nearly finished building the “Space Launch System” featuring four RS25 engines that will fly on the Artemis I mission scheduled for 2020 and possibly lay the foundation for human deep-space exploration. The SLS is the size of a 38-story building and will produce 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust at launch to get people and massive payloads to the moon and Mars. NASA said the SLS rocket will launch the Orion spacecraft “farther than any spacecraft built for humans ever has flown.” It is the largest rocket stage NASA has built since the Saturn V stages for the Apollo Program. The SLS system will be shipped to the Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss., for testing and then Florida’s Kennedy Space Center for launch.

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