Advertisment

NASA's new moon rocket will attempt for lunar shot, 50 years after Apollo

NASA's new moon rocket will make its debut next week in a high-stakes test flight. Billion over budget, a 98-meter rocket will attempt to send an empty crew capsule into a far-flung lunar orbit.

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update
NASA new moon rocket

NASA's new moon rocket will make its debut next week in a high-stakes test flight. Billion over budget, a 98-meter rocket will attempt to send an empty crew capsule into a far-flung lunar orbit, 50 years after Nasa's famous Apollo moonshot.

Advertisment

If everything works according to plan, astronauts could strap in as soon as 2024 for a lap around the moon, with NASA aiming to land two people on the lunar surface by the end of 2025. Liftoff is set for Monday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and a six-week test flight could be cut short if something fails, NASA officials warn, the Times of Israel reported.

“We’re going to stress it and test it. We’re going make it do things that we would never do with a crew on it in order to try to make it as safe as possible,” NASA Administraor Bill Nelson said on Wednesday, as per Associated Press.

John Logsdon, a retired founder of George Washington University’s space policy institute said a lot is riding on this trial run. Spiralling costs and long gaps between missions will make for a tough comeback if things go south, he added.

“It is supposed to be the first step in a sustained program of human exploration of the moon, Mars, and beyond,” said Logsdon, also a former member of the NASA Advisory Council.

This single mission will cost around more than 4 billion dollars.

Advertisment