AFTER months of preparation, NASA’s 32-story Space Launch System (SLS) was hauled Saturday to its seaside launch pad in Florida, the United States, setting the stage for a long-awaited flight next month that will carry four astronauts around the Moon.

The 5.7-million-pound rocket, transported by an upgraded Apollo-era crawler-transporter weighing about 6 million pounds, began the slow trip to Pad 39B just after 7 a.m. local time, leaving NASA’s cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at a top speed of just under 1 mile per hour.

Hundreds of space center workers, family members and guests gathered near the VAB and along the crawlerway to watch, posing for selfies and braving a chilly Saturday morning as the towering rocket rolled past. New NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and the Artemis II astronauts were also on hand for the milestone.

Generating roughly 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, the SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever operated, surpassing even the agency’s legendary Saturn V. It produces a little more than half the thrust of SpaceX’s Super Heavy–Starship stack, but after an unpiloted test flight in 2022 (Artemis I), NASA deemed it safe to carry astronauts.

The SpaceX vehicle remains in testing, and it is unclear when it will make its first crewed flight.

The Artemis II crew is scheduled to launch in early February to test the Orion crew capsule in Earth orbit before heading into deep space on a trip around the Moon. The mission will take the astronauts farther from Earth than any before and provide opportunities to observe the lunar far side in greater detail.

The SLS’ maiden flight in 2022 was delayed multiple times by propellant-loading issues and hydrogen leaks. For this second flight, NASA and its contractor teams have implemented upgrades and procedural changes intended to minimize or eliminate similar problems.

(SD-Agencies)