CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA moved Artemis I, the rocket that will soon head to the moon, to the launch pad for final preparation Tuesday evening.
At around 10 p.m., the rocket left the Vehicle Assembly Building and entered Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. NASA is hopeful Artemis I will once again land humans on the moon.
If all things go as planned, NASA is aiming for an Aug. 29 liftoff for the lunar test flight. No one will be inside of this rocket though, just three mannequins. The rocket is poised to be the largest and most powerful to launch from the Space Coast in years.
It's a mission that "will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration and demonstrate our commitment and capability to return humans to the Moon and extend beyond," NASA's site reads.
The launch window is from 8:33 a.m. to 10:33 a.m. on Aug. 29 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The mission will last 42 days, 3 hours and 20 minutes with its "splashdown" set for Oct. 10 off the coast of San Diego.
The Orion spacecraft will launch atop the most powerful rocket in the world, reaching a distance farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever reached before. It will travel 280,000 miles from Earth and 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon. It will then stay in space longer than any human spacecraft has without docking to a space station.
While in space, parts of the space exploration system will deploy ten small satellites to study the moon and reach farther deep space destinations.