NASA to conduct elaborate dress rehearsal with new megarocket this weekend
For the next three days, NASA is staging an elaborate dress rehearsal with its massive new rocket, the Space Launch System — practicing all of the major steps the agency will have to perform when the vehicle launches for the very first time. It’s a major milestone for the rocket’s development and one of the last major tests it must undergo before the vehicle can be cleared to fly sometime this summer.
The Space Launch System, or SLS, is the agency’s new flagship rocket, designed to carry people and cargo into deep space. It’s meant to play a lead role in NASA’s Artemis program, the agency’s initiative to send the first woman and the first person of color to the Moon by the mid-2020s. Capable of lifting nearly 60,000 pounds of cargo to...