Skip to main content

Check out NASA’s new spaceship that’s about to fly to the moon

NASA is about to perform the maiden launch of its next-generation Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the most powerful launch vehicle it’s ever built.

The Orion spacecraft.
NASA

Next week’s Artemis I mission marks the start of an exciting new era of space exploration that will pave the way for a crewed lunar landing — the first since 1972 — in just a few years from now.

Recommended Videos

Making astronaut missions possible to the moon, Mars, and beyond is the Orion spacecraft, a vehicle that on its maiden flight next week will perform a crewless flyby of the moon before returning to Earth in a demanding six-week test voyage.

Orion’s Crew Module was built by Lockheed Martin, while the European Service Module — vital for the supply of electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air, and water — is the work of Airbus Defence and Space, a unit of the aviation giant.

The video below offers a detailed look at the new Orion spacecraft, the first to be especially designed for crewed missions to deep space.

Orion Components

As the video shows, Orion’s Crew Module can carry up to four astronauts, while the spaceship’s main engine is capable of 6,000 pounds of thrust, with eight auxiliary engines each offering up to 110 pounds of thrust.

Orion also features four seven-meter-long solar wings, with 3,750 solar cells per wing drawing energy from the sun.

The video also highlights Orion’s launch abort system, a mechanism designed to activate within milliseconds of a serious anomaly at launch. If needed, the system will rapidly propel the crew capsule away from a potentially out-of-control rocket to safety via a parachute-assisted landing.

“This new spacecraft will take us farther than we’ve gone before, including to the vicinity of the moon and Mars,” NASA says on its website. “Named after one of the largest constellations in the night sky and drawing from more than 50 years of spaceflight research and development, the Orion spacecraft is designed to meet the evolving needs of our nation’s deep space exploration program for decades to come.”

With 8.8 million pounds of thrust — the most ever seen with a rocket launch — next week’s SLS lift-off promises to be an extraordinary spectacle. Here’s how to watch a livestream of the event.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

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 the NASA EV that will drive Artemis crew (partway) to the moon
The interior of the EV that will take NASA's Artemis II astronauts to the launchpad.

NASA and electric vehicle startup Canoo Technologies have shown off the EV that will transport the next lunar astronauts to the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center as part of next year’s Artemis II mission.

The space agency unveiled the vehicle earlier this year, but on Sunday, it gave folks attending the Formula 1 race in Austin, Texas, a closer look at its stylish exterior and rather plush interior.

Read more
NASA’s Artemis moon astronauts suit up for mission practice run
NASA's crew for the Artemis II lunar mission.

The four Artemis II astronauts who will embark on a flyby of the moon in November next year successfully conducted a pre-launch practice run on Wednesday.

In line with launch day procedures, NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, started the day by waking up inside the crew quarters at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Read more
NASA eyes weather for Friday’s Crew-7 launch. Here’s how it’s looking
A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off on May 30, for the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon capsule. flight

NASA and SpaceX are about to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the Crew-7 mission.

The crew comprises American Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA, Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency), Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Konstantin Borisov of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency. They'll spend six months living and working aboard the station orbiting about 250 miles above Earth.

Read more