Skip to main content

Check out the awesome power of NASA’s Artemis rocket booster

NASA successfully completed a full-scale booster test of its Space Launch System (SLS) at a site in the Utah desert on Wednesday, September 2. SLS will one day transport humans to the moon, Mars, and possibly even further into deep space.

The static test, which involved firing up the most powerful rocket booster ever built for flight, lasted a full two minutes — the same amount of time for which the rocket’s two boosters would operate during liftoff and flight during a mission.

Recommended Videos

But in a tweet, NASA said the test was “not all about power,” adding, “It’s also about the technical innovations that will help us explore the moon and beyond. Our engineers and technicians will continue to analyze the data and use it to improve future rocket boosters on future Artemis missions.”

NASA Tests Space Launch System Rocket Booster for Artemis Missions

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted congratulations to those conducting the test, adding in a statement: “Landing the first woman and the next man on the moon is just the beginning of NASA’s Artemis Program. The SLS flight support booster firing is a crucial part of sustaining missions to the moon. NASA’s goal is to take what we learn living and working on the moon and use it to send humans on the first missions to Mars.”

NASA is planning to land on the moon again by 2024. The SLS rocket is part of a set of apparatus that includes the Orion spacecraft, Lunar Gateway, and human landing system that will support NASA’s future space exploration projects.

SLS stands at 98.1 meters (322 feet), which, for context, makes it 5.2 meters (17 feet) taller than the Statue of Liberty. During the launch, the rocket will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust, “equivalent to more than 160,000 Corvette engines,” as NASA puts it. That’s 13% more than the Space Shuttle and 15% more than the mighty Saturn V, the launch vehicle used for earlier crewed missions to the moon.

Highlighting its importance, NASA notes that SLS is currently the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the moon in a single mission.

Despite the ambitious project suffering a number of delays and a spiraling budget, astronaut Christina Koch, who recently broke the record for the longest single continuous stay in space for a woman at 328 days, told Digital Trends that NASA can “absolutely” achieve its “bold goal” of returning humans to the moon by 2024.

If NASA can stick to its current plan, the first outing for SLS will be an uncrewed test flight called Artemis 1 in November 2021.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Check out astronaut’s stunning ‘science and art’ photo from the ISS
Earth, space, and the ISS as seen from the space station.

“So full of techno-cool and art-cool,” American astronaut Don Pettit wrote in a social media post describing his latest image from the International Space Station (ISS).

The remarkable photo is filled with light from stars and cities, with the trails created by keeping the camera shutter open for an extended period. We can also see the airglow on Earth's horizon, sunlight glinting off the SpaceX’s distant Starlink satellites, several spacecraft docked at the ISS, and parts of the station itself, too.

Read more
NASA’s rocket fireplace will ‘blow your guests away’
A log fire with rockets.

NASA Rocket Engine Fireplace - 8 Hours in 4K

If you like the idea of a festive log fire crackling away in the cozy confines of your home but you don’t actually have one to enjoy, then you can always hop onto YouTube and hit play on a virtual log fire.

Read more
Relive NASA’s debut launch of its mighty SLS rocket on second anniversary
NASA's SLS rocket launching at the start of the Artemis I mission.

NASA’s Artemis I Moon Mission: Launch to Splashdown Highlights

Two years ago, on November 16, NASA performed the maiden launch of its Space Launch System (SLS) mega moon rocket that carried an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to orbit in a mission and marked the official start of the U.S. space agency’s ambitious Artemis program.

Read more