The most powerful space rocket ever to leave Earth will take a 50-year leap across the heavens when it rises from its Florida launchpad on Monday, one of the final crucial test steps before humanity’s return to the moon for the first time since 1972.
Artemis 1, comprising Orion, a six-person deep-space exploration capsule, atop a 98m (322ft), 2,600-tonne (2,875-ton) Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, is scheduled for its maiden liftoff at 8.33am ET (1.33pm UK time) from the same Cape Canaveral launch complex that staged the Apollo lunar missions half a century ago.
