On April 1, four astronauts blasted off on what will be a 10-day voyage around the moon and back. Their mission, the first to send humans to the moon since 1972, will test key systems for two lunar landings in 2028, which will, in turn, lay the foundation for a permanent base on the moon's surface.

The Artemis II crew — which consists of commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — are slingshotting around Earth before initiating a translunar injection burn to send them on a roughly 245,000-mile (394,000 kilometers) flight to lunar orbit.

Here's the launch of the historic mission in pictures.

Sunrise over moonshot

At 322 feet (98 meters) in height, the Artemis II rocket stack is taller than the Statue of Liberty and provides over 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust to a capsule the size of a camper van.

Taking a seat

Artemis II's launch has been hotly anticipated, with NASA originally targeting a moon landing by 2024 back in 2019.

Still, given the numerous delays and setbacks suffered by Artemis II and its predecessor mission, setting up this early was an act of faith by many onlookers.

Onto the tarmac

To avoid health issues in space, it's standard protocol for astronauts to quarantine before a launch.

The Artemis II astronauts quarantined with their families and, just before exiting, played a card game — one of many prelaunch rituals intended to "use up" bad luck before heading out to the launchpad.

Locked and loaded

The astronauts experienced up to four times Earth's gravity during their ascent to orbit, accelerating to speeds of up to 10,000 mph (16,000 km/h).

Those speeds pale in comparison to those at reentry, in which the Artemis II astronauts will fall at slightly over 25,000 mph (40,000 km/h), becoming the fastest humans in history.

Liftoff

To reach orbit, the SLS rocket burns through more than 730,000 gallons (28,000 liters) of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in its core stage alone.

The core stage's four RS-25 engines consume propellant at a rate of 1,500 gallons (5,700 liters) per second during their eight minutes of operation. That's more than enough to drain an Olympic-size swimming pool in that time.

Live from Cape Canaveral

This image of the liftoff was taken by Roger Guillemette, Live Science's Artemis II launch correspondent, for our live Artemis II coverage.

Guillemette has witnessed close to 100 piloted spaceflight launches, from the July 1975 Saturn IB launch of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project to the final launch of the Shuttle Atlantis on STS-135 in July 2011.

A screaming across the sky

The SLS rocket produced a thunderous noise measuring 176 decibels during liftoff ‪—‬ loud enough to cause serious eardrum damage and to be heard up to 30 miles (50 km) away.

As the world watched

Up to 400,000 people watched the rocket take off from along Florida's Space Coast, with tens of millions simultaneously watching online, according to early viewing estimates.

Rocketing skyward

It took around seven seconds for the SLS rocket to clear the launch tower after its two solid-fuel boosters ignited for liftoff. The rocket broke the sound barrier just under a minute into the flight.

Onward to the moon

Upon entering space, the Orion capsule detatched from the rocket's core stage.

The crew will now swing around Earth, performing a gravitational slingshot maneuver to pick up speed.

This will be followed by a translunar injection burn that puts the crew on their final trajectory toward the moon.

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket is back on the move, as the space agency prepares the spacecraft for a potential launch before its April deadline.

This is the second time that the 322-foot-tall (98 meters) Space Launch System and Orion capsule stack has rolled out to the launchpad this year, the first having taken place on Jan. 17. But following two wet dress rehearsals and two leaks, NASA decided to wheel the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs.

If the fixes have worked as planned, the rocket could blast off as early as April 1. It will take the mission's four-person crew, who went into quarantine this week, on a 10-day flight around the moon and back.

Embarking from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the 11 million-pound (5 million kilograms) stack is trundling along at a speed of about 1 mph (1.6 km/h along a 4-mile (6.4 kilometers) route.

The journey is set to take up to 12 hours, with the trip delayed for several hours due to high winds, according to NASA.

Once at the pad, the rocket will undergo a series of final tests, including a wet dress rehearsal to fill the rocket with hydrogen fuel and oxygen oxidizer. If all of these hurdles are cleared, NASA will announce a date within the April window, which includes April 1 to 6 and also April 30, for a launch attempt.

In 2024, the space agency set April 2026 as the furthest deadline for the launch of Artemis II, after which the mission will be considered delayed.

This isn't the first time an Artemis rocket has had issues. The SLS rocket for the Artemis I mission went back to the Vehicle Assembly Building more than once in 2022, before eventually taking off and completing its uncrewed test flight around the moon later that year.

These cumulative delays led NASA to announce a major overhaul of the Artemis program with the agency now aiming for annual launches, potentially dropping SpaceX and Boeing from its mission plans, and targeting two lunar landings in 2028.

NASA claims its return to the moon for the first time since the Apollo era will be a vital test of its systems before attempting a future crewed mission to Mars and beyond.

NASA says it has fixed the helium problem on its Artemis II rocket, which the space agency plans to launch to the moon within weeks.

Artemis II is scheduled to fly four astronauts around the moon on a historic journey that will take humans farther into space than ever before. However, a helium-flow issue discovered in the upper stage of the mission's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket last month delayed the mission for the second time this year.

Engineers have now determined that a dislodged seal was obstructing the helium and made repairs, according to a NASA statement. The space agency expects to continue working on the rocket in the coming weeks ‪—‬ for example, by swapping out batteries in the rocket’s self-destruct system and elsewhere —‬ before returning it to a launchpad at Florida's Kennedy Space Center in time to target an April launch.

The April launch windows for Artemis II include April 1, April 3-6, and April 30. This will be NASA's last chance to launch the rocket on time; the mission is meant to lift off no later than April 30.

Artemis II is NASA's first attempt to send humans back to the moon in more than 50 years. The mission will also send a woman and a Black man to the moon for the first time. While Artemis II won't land on the moon, NASA wants to use the 10-day flight to test systems and gather data before two crewed missions to the lunar surface scheduled for 2028.

The Artemis program has experienced numerous setbacks, including a string of hydrogen leaks. This also isn't the first time an Artemis rocket has returned to the shop for repairs. The Artemis I SLS rocket went back to the Vehicle Assembly Building more than once in 2022, before eventually taking off and completing its uncrewed test flight around the moon.

The delays led NASA to announce a major overhaul of the Artemis program last Friday (Feb. 27), with the agency now targeting annual launches, potentially dropping SpaceX and Boeing from its mission plans, and targeting two lunar landings in 2028.

Expectations for a March launch of Artemis II were high after the rocket completed an important fueling test Feb. 19. Staff demonstrated their ability to safely fuel the SLS with more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of cryogenic propellants — supercold liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer — and complete a simulated launch.

Then, on the night of Feb. 20-21, what NASA has now identified as a dislodged seal prevented helium from flowing to the rocket's upper stage, forcing the agency to scrub the launch and roll its rocket back to Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building.

Helium is important because NASA uses it to control environmental conditions in the upper stage's engine and to pressurize fuel tanks. With repairs made to the seal, engineers hope the helium can do its job unimpeded from here on out.

NASA was aiming for a short turnaround with its rollback to keep the April launch windows open. For now, the space agency seems on track for a spring launch.

NASA has announced a sweeping overhaul to its Artemis program, saying that the agency's plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2028 would not be achievable without an additional flight in 2027.

The new plan, outlined by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman at a Friday (Feb. 27) news conference, includes yearly crewed launches and the scrapping of the Boeing-developed Exploration Upper Stage.

The announcement comes just after the Artemis program suffered its latest setback, an upper-stage helium leak which forced engineers to abandon a March Artemis II launch attempt and haul the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket back to the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly building for fixes.

This issue; plus a string of hydrogen leaks to this rocket and its predecessor; and other considerations about the readiness of core mission technologies, have all contributed to NASA's changed plan. According to Isaacman, the adjustment will rebuild NASA's civil servant workforce and restore core capabilities before a moon landing is attempted.

"Right now our program is essentially set up with Apollo 8 then going right to the moon," Isaacman said at the news conference. "That is not a pathway to success."

What's changing?

NASA announced several major changes to the timeline of the Artemis program, most notably adding a new step between the upcoming Artemis II mission, which will send astronauts on a round-trip around the moon, and a future mission to land humans on the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.

Originally, NASA planned to land a team of astronauts on the moon during the next phase of the Artemis mission, dubbed Artemis III. The crewed lunar landing was initially scheduled for 2026, but has faced numerous delays, recently being pushed back to 2028 at the earliest.

NASA still hopes to land humans on the moon in early 2028, officials said at the briefing, but that mission will now be called Artemis IV. It will also be followed by another crewed landing attempt in late 2028 called Artemis V. In the meantime, the newly retooled Artemis III mission will instead test the Orion crew capsule's ability to dock with a lunar lander in orbit.

Looking to launch in mid-2027, the new Artemis III mission would launch a crew into low-Earth orbit aboard NASA's SLS rocket, then dock the Orion capsule with a lander manufactured by either SpaceX or Blue Origin, two private partners working with NASA.

Adding this additional step to the Artemis campaign puts it more in line with the progression of the Apollo missions — the ten-day Apollo 9 mission tested a docking between the team's command module and lunar lander in low-Earth orbit — before the Apollo 11 mission ultimately landed humans on the moon.

Why is NASA doing this?

This extra step will significantly reduce the risks of a lunar landing, according to Ars Technica, allowing the NASA team to test the handling of the lunar lander, the process of rendezvous and docking the two spacecraft, communications, spacesuit performance and more.

Despite the extra steps, NASA hopes to keep up a brisk pace that will still put American astronauts back on the moon before any other space-faring nations (particularly China) have the chance to.

"If you want a history tidbit, look at the time when Apollo 7 splashed down to when Apollo 8 launched, you're approximately two months apart. We need to start going back to basics and moving in this direction," Isaacman said. "We're going to endeavour to get our launches within a year. Specifically, down to potentially ten months."

Following the Artemis IV return to the moon, NASA intends to continue annual lunar rocket launches into the foreseeable future, Isaacman added.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a NASA announcement that Artemis II's targeted rollback will now be on Wednesday (Feb. 25), a day later than initially planned, due to windy weather.

NASA has delayed its historic Artemis II lunar mission again after the space agency's moon rocket experienced a helium flow issue overnight Friday (Feb. 20-21).

Artemis II was due to fly four astronauts around the moon as early as next week, but now, it will launch no earlier than April.

Engineers encountered a problem with helium flow to the upper stage of Artemis II's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. NASA uses helium to control environmental conditions in the upper stage's engine and to pressurize fuel tanks, so it's essential for it to flow properly.

To resolve the issue, NASA has announced that it will take the rocket and Orion spacecraft off a launchpad at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida and roll them back to KSC's Vehicle Assembly Building as early as Wednesday (Feb. 25).

"Returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy is required to determine the cause of the issue and fix it," a NASA spokesperson said in a statement.

The Artemis Program has experienced numerous issues and setbacks, including a string of hydrogen leaks. Still, this latest delay will be particularly disappointing for space enthusiasts who were hoping to see Artemis II fly after it appeared to clear a critical fueling rehearsal Thursday (Feb. 19).

NASA said the SLS systems worked fine during Thursday’s wet dress rehearsal, when staff demonstrated the systems' ability to safely fuel more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of cryogenic propellants — supercold liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer — and completed a simulated launch. The test’s success led to an ebullient news conference from NASA on Friday (Feb. 20).

"Every night I look up at the Moon and I see it, and I get real excited because I can feel she's calling us and we're ready," Lori Glaze, NASA's Moon to Mars program manager, said at the conference. "The excitement for Artemis II is really, really starting to build, we can really start to feel it. It's coming."

But Artemis' wings were soon clipped that same day, after an issue with the helium system on the rocket's upper stage meant that "the team was unable to get helium flow through the vehicle," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote in an update on X Saturday. Helium is used on the SLS upper stage (officially called the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage) to purge its engine and pressurize its propellant tanks.

NASA is currently investigating potential causes of the helium flow problem, which includes looking at the interface between the ground and rocket lines used to route helium, as well as examining a filter between the ground and rocket and a valve in the upper stage. The agency said it is also reviewing data from Artemis I, the uncrewed precursor to Artemis II, which had an issue with helium-related pressurization before its launch in 2022.

The Artemis II SLS rocket returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) before eventually taking off in November 2022, so this latest development doesn't mean Artemis II won't fly. NASA is hoping the rollback will have a short turnaround, to keep the April launch window open. However, spaceflight is a difficult and delicate process, and there's no guarantee that Artemis II will fly in April, either. Additional Artemis II updates are expected this week.

"The quick work to begin preparations for rolling the rocket and spacecraft back to the VAB potentially preserves the April launch window, pending the outcome of data findings, repair efforts, and how the schedule comes to fruition in the coming days and weeks," NASA wrote in its update.

Artemis II will be a historic mission if and when it eventually takes off, marking the first time NASA is sending humans back to the moon for more than 50 years and first time ever that NASA is sending a woman and a Black man as part of a lunar crew.

NASA will use the 10-day flight around the moon to test systems and gather data ahead of the Artemis III mission, which aims to land astronauts on the moon in 2028. NASA wants to establish a long-term presence on the moon with the Artemis Program and ultimately make the moon a stepping stone for sending astronauts to Mars.

The April launch windows for Artemis II include April 1, April 3 to 6, and April 30. The mission is meant to launch no later than April 30.

NASA is set to fuel the Artemis II rocket once more for a "wet dress rehearsal" on Thursday (Feb. 19) in preparation for its historic launch to the moon.

The fueling test will be NASA's second try at a wet dress rehearsal to fuel its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket after hydrogen leaks plagued the first attempt earlier this month.

The first wet dress rehearsal, which took place on the night of Feb. 2, was scrubbed with roughly 5 minutes left on the countdown clock, after NASA finished fueling and was closing in on a simulated launch. The ground launch sequencer (a software program that automates command and control procedures) halted the countdown because of a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate.

NASA traced the issue to two seals surrounding the fuelling lines, which have since been fixed. Yet the headaches continued following the premature ending of a Feb. 12 "confidence test" due to another problem that reduced the fuel flow to the rocket. NASA said in a statement that its engineers have replaced a filter that was suspected of disrupting hydrogen flow.

"Considering the issues observed during the lead-up to Artemis I, and the long duration between missions, we should not be surprised there are challenges entering the Artemis II campaign," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on the social platform X on Saturday (Feb. 14). "That does not excuse the situation, but we understand it. I am impressed with the NASA team and our contractors working diligently through the campaign."

A historic mission

Artemis II is scheduled to take four astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon. This is the first time NASA is sending humans back to the moon in more than 50 years, and the first time that a woman and a Black man will be part of a lunar crew. If the trip is a success, then NASA will have tested systems and gathered data ahead of the Artemis III mission, which aims to land astronauts on the moon in 2028.

NASA wants to establish a long-term presence on the moon through the Artemis Program, eventually using the lunar surface as a stepping stone to Mars. However, spaceflight is a difficult and delicate process, and that's been repeatedly shown during the Artemis Program.

Hydrogen fuelling remains a key issue. The lightest element has been NASA's fuel of choice since the Apollo program, but it's also notorious for leaking — passing through solid metals by diffusing through their atomic lattices. To complicate matters further, hydrogen has a boiling point of minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 253 Celsius, or 20 kelvins), so NASA has to keep it extremely cold, at temperatures that can then freeze seals.

In 2022, NASA's flagship Space Launch System (SLS) rocket returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building twice due to hydrogen leaks and other technical issues that arose during rehearsals for Artemis I, an uncrewed flight around the moon that eventually took off in November 2022. NASA is now experiencing similar problems with Artemis II.

NASA had already reported some other issues during the first rehearsal, including audio communications dropouts, problems with a replaced valve on the crew capsule and another hydrogen leak, which was blamed on cold weather and resolved by engineers warming up some components.

To pass the wet dress rehearsal on Thursday, NASA will have to demonstrate its ability to safely fuel more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of its hydrogen-based cryogenic propellant and complete a simulated launch. This will include closing hatches on the Orion spacecraft, which the Artemis II crew will ride in on their trip to the moon.

Once NASA has a successful wet dress rehearsal, the space agency can proceed to a flight-readiness review before committing to a launch date for Artemis II. The March launch windows include March 6 to 9 and March 11. If Artemis II doesn't fly on one of those days, it will be delayed until April, with the mission meant to launch no later than April 30.

Artemis II won't lift off for the moon this week after an overnight launch rehearsal revealed that NASA's mega moon rocket is leaking hydrogen fuel.

The Artemis II mission was scheduled to take four astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon as early as Sunday (Feb. 8). But now NASA is targeting March at the earliest for the historic launch, which will be the space agency's first attempt to send humans back to the moon in more than 50 years.

The hydrogen leak and delay won't come as a big surprise to those who have been following the Artemis Program. NASA's flagship Space Launch System (SLS) rocket returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building twice in 2022 due to hydrogen leaks and other technical issues that arose during rehearsals for Artemis I, an uncrewed flight around the moon that eventually took off in November 2022.

"With more than three years between SLS launches, we fully anticipated encountering challenges," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on the social platform X. "That is precisely why we conduct a wet dress rehearsal. These tests are designed to surface issues before flight and set up launch day with the highest probability of success."

During a wet dress rehearsal, NASA's crew demonstrates its ability to fill the rocket with more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of cryogenic propellants — super-cold liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. It's a delicate process at the best of times, but this time NASA has also been grappling with an Arctic blast of cold weather.

The blast delayed the wet dress rehearsal, which was originally scheduled for last week, and caused a late start yesterday because of a small hydrogen leak, which engineers resolved by warming up some components before they loaded the propellant, according to a statement released by NASA.

NASA's staff were able to finish fueling the rocket's tanks and began a countdown to a simulated launch. However, with around five minutes left on the clock, the ground launch sequencer (a software program that automates command and control procedures) halted the countdown because of a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate. The test was then scrubbed.

The leaks appear similar to the issues Artemis I experienced in 2022, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported. Liquid hydrogen was involved then and also occurred at an interface with the tail service mast umbilical, which carries propellant fuel from NASA's mobile launch tower to the SLS.

Teething issues

The hydrogen leak wasn't the only issue that occurred during NASA's two-day test. There were also audio communications dropouts, a recently replaced valve on the Orion crew capsule needed retorquing, and the cold weather affected cameras and other equipment that would have required attention on launch day, according to NASA.

However, the space agency said that its engineers "pushed through several challenges" during the test and met many of its objectives. NASA will now review the test data before attempting a second wet dress rehearsal.

Once Artemis II clears the wet dress rehearsal and simulated launch stage, NASA will conduct a flight-readiness review before committing to a launch date. The March windows include March 6 to 9 and March 11. If Artemis II doesn't fly on one of those days, it will be delayed until April. The mission is meant to launch no later than April 30.

If Artemis II makes a successful trip around the moon, then NASA will have tested systems and gathered data ahead of Artemis III, which aims to put people on the moon in 2028. Artemis II also marks the first time NASA is sending a woman and a Black man to the moon.

The Artemis II crew includes three NASA astronauts; Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.

The crew has been quarantining in Houston since Jan. 21. Astronauts go into quarantine ahead of a launch to ensure they don't get infected by illnesses that could delay their mission. NASA said in its latest statement that the crew will now be released from quarantine for the time being, before reentering about two weeks before the next launch target.

"As always, safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our workforce, our systems, and the public," Isaacman wrote on X. "We will only launch when we believe we are as ready to undertake this historic mission."

NASA plans to host a news conference at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday (Feb. 3) to discuss initial results from the wet dress rehearsal. You can stream the news conference on NASA's YouTube channel, which also provides a live feed of Artemis II sitting on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center.

NASA is gearing up for a simulated launch of the Artemis II mega moon rocket tonight after cold weather pushed back the mission's earliest potential lift-off to later this week.

Artemis II and its four-person crew will now leave Earth for the moon as early as Sunday (Feb. 8), two days later than the previous earliest window, according to a statement released by NASA.

The delay stems from a wave of Arctic air that has brought extreme cold to the U.S. in recent weeks. The cold blast has negatively impacted conditions at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the rocket is currently sitting on a launch pad.

"Over the past several days, engineers have been closely monitoring conditions as cold weather and winds move through Florida," a NASA spokesperson wrote in the statement. "Managers have assessed hardware capabilities against the projected forecast given the rare arctic outbreak affecting the state and decided to change the timeline."

NASA needs to get through a simulated launch before the space agency can proceed with an actual launch. The simulated launch is part of a "wet dress rehearsal," during which engineers test fueling the Artemis II rocket. This was originally scheduled for as early as Jan. 31, but NASA is now targeting Monday (Feb. 2), with the simulated launch window beginning at 9 p.m. ET. The space agency said that the test is expected to go on until around 1 a.m. ET (Feb. 3).

Any date that NASA targets for a test or launch is subject to change. The tricky nature of space travel means that delays are often part of the process, so we can expect NASA to postpone the earliest launch window again if weather conditions aren't favorable, or if technical issues emerge. The potential launch windows for Artemis II extend to no later than April 2026.

The Artemis Program is no stranger to delays. Artemis I returned to NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building twice in 2022 following issues during wet dress rehearsals. The uncrewed rocket ultimately took off during NASA's fourth attempt at a launch in November 2022. Artemis II has already been delayed multiple times, in part so that mission engineers can better understand issues that arose during Artemis I.

Artemis II's upcoming mission is the first time in more than 50 years that NASA is sending humans to the moon, and the first time that a woman will be part of the crew. The mission's Orion spacecraft will loop around the moon on a 10-day flight, testing systems ahead of the Artemis III lunar surface mission, which is scheduled for 2028.

NASA wheeled out Artemis II's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft on Jan. 17. With a 212-foot-tall (65 meters) core stage and a total height of 322 feet (98 m) with the Orion crew capsule on top, the structure is taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Engineers have kept Orion powered on with its heaters running during the cold weather, according to NASA. The space agency previously noted that its engineers have been troubleshooting issues in the lead-up to launch. For example, they worked on leaky ground-support hardware that is needed to supply Orion with oxygen.

Once Artemis II clears the wet dress rehearsal and simulated launch stage, NASA will conduct a flight readiness review before committing to a launch date.

NASA intends to send three of its astronauts on Artemis II: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.

The crew has been in quarantine in Houston since Jan. 23. Astronauts go into quarantine ahead of a launch so that they don't pick up any illnesses that could delay their mission. NASA plans to fly the crew to Florida about six days ahead of launch. However, in the statement announcing the delay, NASA said its managers were "assessing the timeline" for the crew's arrival.

NASA hopes that the Artemis Program will lead to a sustained presence on the moon and serve as a stepping stone for sending humans to Mars.

NASA will simulate a test launch of its Artemis II mega moon rocket as early as Saturday (Jan. 31), with the space agency announcing its engineers are on track or ahead of schedule.

The Artemis II mission, which could launch as early as Feb. 6, aims to send humans around the moon in preparation for the subsequent Artemis III mission that will land astronauts on its surface. This is the first time in more than 50 years that NASA is sending humans back to the moon, and the first time that a woman will be part of the crew.

The Artemis Program aims to put humans on the lunar surface by 2028. Artemis II is the first crewed spaceflight in the program and, assuming all goes to plan, will see four astronauts take a 10-day flight around the moon and back to Earth, testing systems ahead of the Artemis III lunar surface mission.

The upcoming simulated test launch is part of the final preparations NASA will undergo before confirming a launch date for Artemis II. The simulated launch will be preceded by a "wet dress rehearsal," during which engineers will test fueling the Artemis II rocket.

NASA wheeled out the mission’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft on Jan. 17. The rocket and spacecraft are currently sitting on a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With a 212-foot-tall (65 meters) core stage and a total height of 322 feet (98 m) with the Orion crew capsule on top, the structure is taller than the Statue of Liberty.

During the wet dress rehearsal, NASA's crew will demonstrate its ability to fill the rocket with more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of cryogenic propellants. The rehearsal will also include a countdown to the simulated launch, scheduled for 9 p.m. EST. However, the tests could go on until around 1 a.m. EST, according to NASA.

The space agency noted that temperatures in Florida are lower than expected due to the Arctic blast currently hitting the U.S. Technicians are therefore taking steps to ensure environmental control systems keeping the SLS rocket and Orion at the appropriate temperature can handle the cold.

NASA's staff is also working on other issues, including Orion's potable water system, which initial samples revealed had higher levels of organic carbon than expected. This water system will supply drinking water to the Artemis II crew, according to the space agency.

Artemis II's four-person crew includes three NASA astronauts: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch. The fourth member of the crew is Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.

The crew started quarantining in Houston Jan. 23, according to NASA. Astronauts go into quarantine ahead of a launch to ensure they don't get infected by illnesses that could delay their mission. NASA plans to fly the crew to Florida about six days ahead of launch.

The Artemis mission has previously experienced delays. For example, Artemis I returned to NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building twice in 2022 following issues during wet dress rehearsals. The rocket ultimately took off during NASA's fourth attempt at a launch in November 2022. As with all spaceflight missions, any date NASA proposes for a test or launch is subject to change. The potential launch windows for Artemis II extend to no later than April 2026.

If Artemis II makes a successful trip around the moon, then NASA will have tested systems and hardware needed for sending astronauts on increasingly difficult future missions to the lunar surface and beyond. The space agency plans to establish a sustained presence on the moon, which it claims will serve as a stepping stone for future missions to Mars.

NASA is on track to send humans around the moon as early as Feb. 6 as it makes final preparations for the imminent rollout of its Artemis 2 mega moon rocket.

The Artemis Program aims to send humans back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The program will also take the first woman to the moon.

Artemis 2 is the first crewed spaceflight in the mission program. Four astronauts will take a 10-day flight around the moon and back to Earth, testing systems ahead of the Artemis 3 mission, which aims to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface by 2028.

"We are moving closer to Artemis II, with rollout just around the corner," Lori Glaze, the acting associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in a statement released Jan. 9. "We have important steps remaining on our path to launch and crew safety will remain our top priority at every turn, as we near humanity's return to the Moon."

NASA previously announced that the launch window for Artemis 2 could be as soon as Feb. 5, 2026, but no later than April 2026. However, the Artemis mission has previously experienced delays and, as with all spaceflight missions, the latest proposed dates are subject to change.

In preparation for the test flight, NASA is planning to move the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, which will hold the crew, to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than Saturday (Jan. 17). The rocket has a 212-foot-tall (65 meters) core stage and will stand 322 feet (98 m) tall — higher than the Statue of Liberty — when capped with the crew capsule.

The distance between NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building and the launch pad is only 4 miles (6 kilometers), but moving massive rockets is a slow and delicate process, and the journey is expected to take up to 12 hours, according to the statement.

NASA will delay the rollout if weather conditions are unfavorable or there are technical issues. The space agency noted that its engineers have been troubleshooting in the lead-up to launch. For example, they worked on leaky ground support hardware that is needed to supply Orion with oxygen.

After the rollout, NASA plans to run a wet dress rehearsal at the end of January. This is a prelaunch test to fuel the rocket, which is composed of more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of cryogenic propellants. The test will also include things like a launch countdown, practice removing the rocket propellant, and safety procedures. Assuming all goes well, NASA will then conduct a flight readiness review before committing to a launch date.

The space agency wants to have a sustained presence on the moon as part of the Artemis Program, with the moon also serving as a stepping stone to the ultimate goal of putting humans on Mars.

The White House wants to slash NASA's budget and workforce and cancel a number of high-profile missions next year, newly released documents reveal.

On May 2, the Trump administration released its 2026 "skinny budget" request, a broad summary of its funding plans for the coming fiscal year. That document proposed cutting NASA funding by nearly 25%, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, with much of the reduction coming from the agency's science programs.

On Friday afternoon (May 30), the White House published a more detailed version of the 2026 budget request, which shone more light on the administration's aims and the potential effects on NASA, its people and its mission portfolio.

The proposed budget top line is the same in the newly released documents, which you can find here: NASA is allocated $18.8 billion in fiscal year 2026, which runs from Oct. 1, 2025 through Sept. 30, 2026.

This would be the biggest single-year cut to NASA in history, and the 2026 funding would be the agency's lowest since 1961 when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society, a nonprofit exploration advocacy organization.

NASA science funding would be cut by 47% next year, to $3.9 billion — the same number provided by the skinny budget.

This would result in the cancellation of a number of high-profile missions and campaigns, according to the new documents. For example, Mars Sample Return — a project to haul home Red Planet material already collected by NASA's Perseverance rover — would get the axe. So would the New Horizons mission, which is exploring the outer solar system after acing its Pluto flyby in July 2015, and Juno, a probe that has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016.

Two orbiters that have been studying Mars for years — Mars Odyssey and MAVEN — would be cancelled, as would NASA's cooperation on Rosalind Franklin, a life-hunting rover that the European Space Agency plans to launch toward the Red Planet in 2028.

"In total, this budget aims to cancel 41 science projects — fully a third of NASA’s science portfolio," The Planetary Society said in a statement about the newly released budget documents. "These are unique projects that would require billions of new spending to replace."

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA's highly anticipated next-gen observatory, is not one of the casualties, as many had feared. But the budget request allocates just $156.6 million to Roman's development next year — less than half of what NASA had planned to spend.

The budget request also slashes NASA's workforce from its current 17,391 to 11,853 — a reduction of about 32%. And it would eliminate the agency's Office of STEM Engagement, saying that NASA will inspire future generations sufficiently via its missions.

"The radical and rapid gutting of NASA's resources will lead to reduced productivity, threaten institutional knowledge and create economic uncertainty in the American industrial base," The Planetary Society said.

The organization is not a fan of the White House's plan, describing it as "an extinction-level event for the space agency’s most productive, successful and broadly supported activity: science."

The newly published documents also confirm other exploration plans laid out in the skinny budget — for example, the cancellation of the Gateway moon-orbiting space station and the phaseout of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule.

These pieces of hardware have long been part of NASA's architecture for Artemis, its program of crewed moon exploration. The 2026 budget request eliminates SLS and Orion after they fly together on Artemis 3, a crewed landing mission targeted to launch in 2027.

They would be replaced by private vehicles developed via the new "Commercial Moon to Mars (M2M) Infrastructure and Transportation Program," which gets $864 million in the 2026 budget proposal.

It's unclear how much of this will actually come to pass, however; the budget request is just a proposal, which will not be enacted unless and until Congress approves it.

The Planetary Society, for one, doesn't think this will happen; it describes the budget request "as dead on arrival in Congress."

This article was originally published on Space.com.

The Artemis mega moon rocket is NASA's latest and most powerful launch vehicle, intended to return astronauts, robots, and supplies to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. It consists of a multistage rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which can carry various additional modules atop it, such as the Orion crew vehicle that houses astronauts during flight.

Artemis 1: On Nov. 16, 2022, the SLS achieved liftoff for the first time, blasting off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. ET. After months of delay and three aborted attempts at launch, the rocket finally took off. Shortly after, the Orion crew capsule detached for an unmanned, 26-day mission to the moon and back. The capsule reentered Earth's atmosphere and successfully splashed down off the coast of Baja California, Mexico on Dec. 11, 2022. With that, phase one of NASA's Artemis mission — which will eventually return humans to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years — officially concluded.

Artemis 2: On April 3, 2023, NASA announced the names of the four astronauts who will take a round-trip journey around the moon during the Artemis 2 mission. The team will consist of astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Hammock Koch and Victor Glover from the United States, and Jeremy Hansen from Canada.

In a press conference on Sept. 23, 2025, NASA officials announced that the launch window for Artemis 2 could open as soon as February 5, 2026, and no later than April, 2026.

What is the history of the mega moon rocket?

The SLS is an outgrowth of a previously planned rocket called Ares V, a heavy-lift two-stage vertically stacked launch system capable of carrying about 287,000 pounds (130,000 kilograms) to low Earth orbit or 143,000 pounds (65,000 kg) to the moon, according to NASA. Ares V was part of the Constellation program, an initiative, started during the George W. Bush administration, that intended to return people to the moon, according to the space agency.

Constellation was deemed too expensive, but in 2010, President Barack Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 into law, directing NASA to create an Ares V-like rocket called the Space Launch System, according to The Planetary Society. Although the SLS is intended for use in crewed missions, the Artemis mission to send humans beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since 1972 has suffered numerous delays.

What is the Space Launch System?

SLS is a super heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of taking astronauts to destinations all over the solar system, including the moon and Mars, according to NASA. It can be organized into several evolvable and increasingly powerful configurations, allowing the agency to take on ever more ambitious missions.

The rocket consists of a core stage towering more than 212 feet (65 meters), with a diameter of 27.6 feet (8 m). When capped by the Orion crew capsule, the core stage will stand 322 feet (98 m) tall — higher than the Statue of Liberty — and weigh 5.75 million pounds (2.6 million kg). Along with two solid rocket boosters strapped to its side, the SLS can reach speeds of 24,500 mph (40,000 km/h) — fast enough to escape Earth's gravity and reach the moon or beyond.

The core stage is powered by four RS-25 engines originally used to launch the space shuttle. These engines utilize liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen and, with the additional solid rocket boosters, provide 8.8 million pounds (4 million kg) of thrust, surpassing the space shuttle system's 7.8 million pounds (3.5 million kg) of thrust, according to the Houston Space Center.

Under its initial Block 1 configuration, the SLS can ferry 59,500 pounds (27,000 kg) to the moon, according to NASA. The next configuration, Block 1B crew, will add a powerful Exploration Upper Stage that will provide an additional 97,000 pounds (44,000 kg) of thrust to the rocket and make it taller than the Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo astronauts to the moon. Block 1B crew can send 83,700 pounds (38,000 kg) to deep space, allowing researchers to bring supplies and experiments to Mars or beyond.

The most advanced currently planned configuration, called Block 2, will provide 9.5 million pounds (4.3 million kg) of thrust and will be able to lift more than 101,400 pounds (46,000 kg) to deep space. NASA intends the Block 2 configuration of the SLS, which will stand 365 feet (111 m) high, to be the workhorse for missions all over the solar system.

What is the Orion spacecraft?

The Orion spacecraft carries crew, life support and power for up to four astronauts, according to NASA. The crew module is 11 feet (3.3 m) high, with a diameter of 16.5 feet (5 m), giving it 316 cubic feet (9 cubic meters) of interior space — much more than three Apollo astronauts had during their trips to the moon, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.

The vehicle is made mainly from aluminum alloys, according to NASA, with an outer layer of 1,300 thermal protection silica tiles similar to the ones used on the underside of the space shuttle. The bottom of the capsule carries a large heat shield to protect crews as they reenter Earth's atmosphere, when Orion will be traveling a screaming 25,000 mph (40,000 km/h) and reach temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) — more than half as hot as the surface of the sun.

The Orion capsule contains four adjustable seats, dispensers to provide drinking water, a microwave to reheat food, exercise devices to keep the crew fit during missions, air filters, and a compact toilet. In the event of a blast of dangerous solar radiation, astronauts will be able to take shelter in two large lockers at the floor of the capsule.

What will the mega moon rocket do?

SLS and Orion are part of NASA's Artemis program, which intends to bring the first woman and the first person of color to the moon by 2027 and eventually establish a permanent crewed presence on our natural satellite.

In June 2022, NASA conducted a wet dress rehearsal of SLS in which engineers filled it with fuel and performed a mock countdown. The rehearsal was canceled with just 29 seconds left on the countdown clock due to a hydrogen leak, but officials said they nonetheless got a great deal of useful information from the test.

The Artemis 2 mission, currently scheduled for 2026, will take astronauts around the moon but not land them there, according to Space.com. If that mission is successful, NASA hopes to land people on the moon with the Artemis 3 mission.

Additional resources

• Learn all about the Artemis program from NASA's official Artemis website.
• The agency's SLS page will keep you up to date on events and missions involving the rocket.
• You can also watch a video about the various components of the Orion module in this YouTube video.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Dec 6, 2024, to include new details about the planned Artemis 2 mission. It was updated again on Sept. 25, 2025, with an updated Artemis 2 launch date.

NASA's new mega moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), is getting one step closer to reaching for the stars Wednesday (April 6)  by completing what's known as a wet dress rehearsal, in which the agency loaded the vehicle's tanks with cryogenic fuel and simulated countdown in preparation for liftoff. 

While NASA broadcasts live video of the test on its website, many key details about the event were kept secret, ostensibly for reasons having to do with national security. But do most of these details really need to be top secret? Here's what we know about the agency's decision to be so clandestine, and why not everybody is buying their stated rationales.

What is a wet dress rehearsal?

In anticipation of lighting up its gigantic new launch vehicle, which when capped by the Orion crew vehicle stands 322 feet (98 meters) tall, higher than the Statue of Liberty, NASA needs to test all of the SLS's various components. During the uncrewed wet dress rehearsal, the agency loads up the rocket's tanks with supercooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen — which when combined produce a powerful thrust to send the vehicle into space — and practices various scenarios in preparation for liftoff.

"The test runs about two days long and emulates our launch countdown," said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson during a press briefing on Tuesday, March 29. Blackwell-Thompson is the launch director of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to eventually land the first woman and first person of color on the moon. 

Engineers monitor temperatures and pressures in the tanks during the rehearsal, taking data the whole time that will help them once the rocket is ready for its debut flight. They also practice going through several different countdown sequences, once to T-minus 1 minute and 30 seconds, a second time down to 33 seconds before launch, and finally all the way down to T-minus 10 seconds before launch. 

These allow launch controllers to simulate various situations in which a launch may have to be canceled — or "scrubbed" — due to a technical or weather-related issue, officials said during the March 29 briefing.

Why were key facts kept secret?

While NASA shared certain milestones about the wet dress rehearsal on social media, the agency was prohibited from discussing every detail due to concerns over International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Tom Whitmeyer, the agency's associate administrator for common exploration systems development, told reporters during the press briefing. 

ITAR is a regulatory regime that restricts the sharing of information about weapons and technology in ways that may be harmful to U.S. national security or foreign policy, according to the U.S. Department of State.

"We're really super sensitive to cryogenic launch vehicles that are of this size and capability," Whitmeyer told reporters. "They are very analogous to ballistic-type capabilities that other countries are very interested in."

In particular, hostile foreign countries might like to get as much information as possible about things like "timing, sequence, flow rates, temperatures," he added. "Anything that would help them or other folks that could be used to do similar things," meaning building gigantic and potentially deadly missiles. 

The complex interactions involved in loading up both the SLS's core rocket stage and its upper stage at the same time were a particular concern, Whitmeyer said. "How long it takes to do certain tasks — that's considered to be important information by other countries," he added. "So we have to be careful when we share data, particularly for the first time."

What are people saying about the concerns?

The need to keep everything under wraps didn't sit well with some experts. "Sigh. ITAR has been the excuse for so much ridiculousness over the years," tweeted astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who follows space launches closely.

McDowell shared a detailed timeline that was given to reporters in 1992 in anticipation of the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor, suggesting NASA's current skittishness with regards to national security is a fairly recent phenomenon. 

Reporter Michael Baylor, who works for NASASpaceflight.com, which focuses on space-related news, had even harsher words. "I am sorry, but this excuse is total BS. It is industry standard to broadcast the primary countdown loop. Pretty much all of the U.S. launch providers do it, and NASA did it during Shuttle. If you are worried about ITAR, you make the callout on a different loop," he tweeted. 

Cryogenic fuels are not generally used much in ballistic missile systems, Baylor added. This is probably due to the fact that keeping fuel at supercooled temperatures for a long period of time is difficult and expensive, meaning that many countries have abandoned missiles that use such fuel, according to a website maintained by the Federation of American Scientists. 

Now that the wet dress rehearsal is over, it's possible additional data will be shared during a post-test media teleconference on April 5, and NASA should be more forthcoming during the upcoming launch of the Artemis 1 mission, expected this summer, Whitmeyer said. "We're doing everything we can to provide as much information as possible."

Originally published on Live Science.

What the heck is a "wet dress rehearsal" and what does it have to do with flying to space?

If you've never heard that term before, NASA is about to enlighten you, as it undertakes a so-called wet dress rehearsal (WDR) with a rocket bound for the moon. During a WDR, a series of pre-launch tests load a rocket with liquid, supercooled fuel; verify launch systems; and practice different countdown scenarios in preparation for liftoff. It's a process that the Artemis I mission's Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket are about to undergo while parked at Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, beginning on Friday (April 1) and continuing through Sunday (April 3).

After that, if all goes well, NASA officials are expected to set an official launch date for Artemis I, representatives announced at a briefing on Tuesday (March 29).

The WDR's "call to stations" will take place on April 1 at 5:00 p.m. EDT and the targeted end of the test window will be on April 3 at about 2:40 p.m., NASA representatives announced at the briefing. 

Related: NASA's new moon rocket spotted from space rolling to the launch pad (photos)

On March 17, Orion and the SLS rode to the launch pad on an enormous "supertank" vehicle: NASA's Crawler-Transporter 2 (CT-2), a 131-foot-long (40 meters) and 114-foot-wide (35 m) behemoth that weighs approximately 6.6 million pounds (3 million kilograms, or the weight of about 15 Statues of Liberty) and was built more than 50 years ago to transport Apollo rockets bound for the moon. 

Since NASA's last moon missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, CT-2 (and its partner, CT-1) have undergone modifications and improvements to prepare them to carry even heavier payloads — such as Artemis' massive SLS rocket — to and from the Kennedy launch pads, and the crawlers are expected to be in use "for many years to come," according to NASA.

"Like watching a ballet"

At the start of the rehearsal, communications systems in the Orion spacecraft will be powered up and tested, Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said at the briefing.

"We have an opportunity in there for the flight control team to do some commanding to the vehicle," Blackwell-Thompson said. "Then we start doing our pad configuration," such as positioning the launch pad's flame deflector and removing handrails. Technicians will then load the tanks of the rocket's core stage and upper stage with propellant: liquid hydrogen chilled to minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 268 degrees Celsius) and liquid oxygen at minus 273 F (minus 169 C), Tom Whitmeyer, NASA associate administrator for common exploration systems development, said at the briefing.

"It's like watching a ballet," Whitmeyer said. "You've got pressure, volume and temperature, and you're working all those parameters to have a successful tanking operation."

Then the countdown tests begin. Controllers will count down to T-minus 1 minute and 30 seconds, and then pause to demonstrate the system's ability to hold for up to 3 minutes. They'll then resume counting, reaching 33 seconds before launch. At 33 seconds, the count will pause again, then rewind back to 10 minutes before launch. A second terminal countdown will reach about 10 seconds before launch, and then end. This enables launch controllers to test a scenario in which a launch may need to be cancelled — or "scrubbed" — due to a technical or weather-related issue.

NASA officials will then examine the results of the WDR tests and review the data before setting an official launch date for Artemis I. They will evaluate performance of all WDR tasks and inspect the rocket and spacecraft to see if the tests revealed anything unusual or unexpected that needs to be addressed, Whitmeyer said.

After the WDR is completed and the rocket's fuel tanks have been drained, SLS and Orion will be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for additional testing of the flight safety systems prior to launch, Blackwell-Thompson said at the briefing.

"Once all of that is complete and the vehicle is in the final configuration for launch, then we'll roll back out to the pad for our launch operations," Blackwell-Thompson said. The flow of operations when the rocket is finally rolled out for launch will be very similar to what was done during the rehearsal, she added.

You can watch a live video stream of the stacked SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft at the launch pad on April 1 beginning at 12 p.m. EDT, tune in here at Live Science or on the Kennedy Space Center Newsroom's YouTube channel. NASA will also provide updates of the WDR tests on the Artemis blog and on the Exploration Ground Systems Twitter account. 

And don't forget to check back with Live Science for news about the WDR and the upcoming moon mission launch!

Originally published on Live Science.

NASA conducted its second major test of its powerful new moon rocket, and this time it only caught on fire a little bit.

The Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage test took place late Thursday afternoon (March 18) at NASA's coastal Mississippi test site, in a facility designed to hold the powerful machine in place while its engines fired up. The test marked the end of an eight-stage "green run" of the SLS's main rocket that was designed to show its spaceworthiness, theoretically setting it up for an actual test launch.

It was the agency's second go at firing SLS's Core Stage after a Jan. 16 test ended in an abort just 67.7 seconds after it began, due to a "major component failure" error. This time, NASA said it hoped to run the engines for at least 4 minutes to collect data. The test, aired on NASA's YouTube channel, ran for more than 8 minutes. Visible on a camera recording the engines was a small fire that NASA attributed to some tape used in the engine area unexpectedly igniting. 

"If the tape gets hot enough, that adhesive layer below the tape surface is going to start burning, so we clearly saw a lot of that," a NASA commentator said during the webcast. "But there was nothing that prompted shutdown early, which was really good news."

NASA's next step is to affix the Core Stage engines to the rest of the SLS and fly it into space for the first time. The agency has said it plans to eventually send the SLS on an uncrewed loop around the moon, though there's no firm date for that mission and the SLS project has been subject to delays in the past.

Long-term, the goal of SLS is to serve as a platform for the Artemis missions: a project to build a space station in orbit around the moon and use that station as a "gateway" to land astronauts on the moon's surface.

The 322-foot-tall (98 meters) SLS isn't as big as the 363-foot-tall (111 m) Saturn V rockets that carried Apollo astronauts to the moon in the 1960s. But the new engine is much more powerful: It produces about 15% more thrust during liftoff and is an overall more efficient cargo hauler.

Originally published on Live Science.

NASA fired up the core stage of its massive new rocket — the Space Launch System (SLS) — on Saturday (Jan. 16) in a critical test that ended prematurely when the booster's engines shut down earlier than planned. 

Smoke and flames billowed from the four RS-25 engines that power the behemoth rocket's core booster, a centerpiece of NASA's Artemis moon program, as it roared to life atop a test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Ignition occurred at 5:27 EST (2227 GMT), with 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of cryogenic fuel flowing through the engines as they roared for just over 1 minute, much shorter than planned. 

The test was supposed to run for 485 seconds (or just over 8 minutes), which is the amount of time the engines will burn during flight. Following engine ignition, the four RS-25 engines fired for just over 60 seconds, NASA said.

"Not everything went according to script today," NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said late Saturday after the test. "But we got a lot of great data, a lot of great information."

Video: How NASA's SLS megarocket engine test works

 An early engine shutdown 

It's still too early to know exactly what caused the early shutdown in Saturday's engine test. 

Flight controllers could be heard during the test referring to an "MCF" (a major component failure) apparently related to engine No. 4 on the SLS booster. John Honeycutt, NASA's SLS program manager, added that at about the 60-second mark, cameras caught a flash in a protective thermal blanket on the engine, though its cause and significance remain to be determined. 

Honeycutt said it's too early to know if a second hot-fire test will be required at Stennis, or if it can be done later at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the SLS is scheduled to launch the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission around the moon by the end of this year. Similarly, it's too early to know if Artemis 1 will still be able to launch this year.

"I think it's still too early to tell," Bridenstine said of whether a 2021 launch for Artemis 1 is still in the cards. "As we figure out what went wrong, we're going to know kind of what the future holds."

During a press conference on Tuesday (Jan. 12), John Shannon vice president and program manager for SLS at Boeing, said that the engines needed to run for a certain amount of time to get the data they needed. "If we had an early shutdown, for whatever reason, we get all of the engineering data we need to have high confidence in the vehicle at about 250 seconds," Shannon said. 

Since the test was stopped short of 250 seconds, and before the teams were able to gimble (or move) the engines, exactly how much data and how confident the teams are in the vehicle is yet to be determined. 

Saturday's test was initially moved up an hour to 4 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) as test preparations were ahead of schedule. However, during the countdown, engineers put the count on hold to work through water deflection system checks and other tests on the engine test stand. The teams were able to work through the issues and resume the count in time to complete the test Saturday, despite the short run time.

The exercise, known as a hot-fire test, put the core Space Launch System booster components — the four RS-25 main engines, fuel tanks and the rockets computers and avionics — through their paces. The test simulated a launch while holding the rocket firmly in place, affixed to a test stand. (The same test stand was used to test out the engines on both NASA's Saturn V rocket and space shuttle orbiters.) 

"The SLS rocket is the most powerful rocket ever built in the history of humanity," Bridenstine said on NASA TV shortly before the test. "This is the same rocket that, by the end of this year, will be launching an Orion crew capsule around the moon."

 Anatomy of the Space Launch System

NASA's Space Launch System was first conceived in 2011 and is finally coming together for an uncrewed trip around the moon sometime later this year. 

Each SLS rocket will use four RS-25 rocket engines to launch its 212-foot (65-meter) core stage. The rocket will also rely on two solid rocket boosters and an upper stage to launch NASA's Orion crew capsule beyond low-Earth orbit.

Together, SLS and Orion are the two major components of NASA's Artemis moon program which seeks to return astronauts to the moon as soon as 2024.

The agency currently has 16 RS-25 engines on hand, which were salvaged from the agency's now-retired space shuttle program. Those engines will be used on the first four SLS rocket launches for Artemis missions 1 through 4. (Those flights include the program's first crewed moon landing, Artemis 3, and a follow-up flight.)

Space Launch System: NASA's giant rocket for Artemis moon missions explained

Since the engines on those first missions are shuttle leftovers, they've been overhauled with new computer controllers as well as upgrades that ensure they can handle the higher performance demands of an SLS launch, NASA officials have said.

That's not the only part recycled from programs past. Like the engines, the solid rocket boosters were also used to propel NASA's fleet of space shuttles to orbit. They too, have been modified to work with SLS. But they won't be used forever. As technology evolves, the side boosters will be swapped out for advanced boosters. 

The SLS will contain a pair of these boosters strapped onto the side of the core stage. It consists of four RS-25 engines at the base of the vehicle, and stacked on top will be the rocket’s components with an Orion capsule and service module perched atop. 

The whole vehicle will be capped off with a launch orbit system that is designed to pull the capsule away from the rocket if something goes wrong during a launch. 

 Road to the test pad 

NASA has been systematically testing the various components of the SLS rocket over the past few years. 

The agency tested each of the main engines separately to ensure they fired up as expected. And to ensure the flight hardware meets design expectations, NASA began what it calls a "Green Run" test which included testing the craft's avionics, countdown and launch timeline, fueling procedures and more. 

The testing went smoothly but not without issues. A global pandemic coupled with an unprecedented number of tropical storms and hurricane impacting the test sites added to delays caused by hardware issues. 

NASA conducted two separate "wet dress rehearsals," in which fuel was loaded into the engines and then subsequently drained. During one such exercise, which took place on Dec. 20, the test ended early unexpectedly, causing today's hot-fire test to be delayed from December, according to a NASA statement. Another fueling attempt earlier in December was stalled due to temperature issues.

The runup to Saturday's engine tests also saw a series of delays due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, NASA officials said. Social distancing restrictions meant that many of the NASA officials, engineers and other SLS team members (as well as the media) could not be on hand in person to witness the pivotal rocket test. Many team members sent in videos to participate virtually.

 Testing is key

The purpose of the test is to ensure that the rocket will be able to carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a journey around the moon later this year. 

With the ignition of the four RS-25 engines, it closed out a critical period of preflight testing for the rocket that NASA referred to as its "Green Run." That series of tests began with stress tests on the physical structure of the rocket and ended with today’s hot fire test. 

The goal of the test was to run through launch day procedures, and ignite the four engines, allowing them to burn for just over 8 minutes — just shy of the duration they will burn during an actual flight. That full-duration test fire clearly did not happen.

It will take the teams at least several days to review the SLS test data before deciding on next steps, such as the requirement for more tests or clearing the core stage for its next step: refurbishment and eventual transportation to the launch site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

Once it does arrive in Florida, it will be integrated with the rest of the vehicle that is already onsite. This includes its two solid rocket boosters, which are currently being stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. 

The boosters were previously tested before being shipped in segments to Florida. Each booster consists of five segments that are stacked on top of one another. 

The Orion spacecraft is complete and nearly ready to be affixed to the top of the SLS once the rocket is fully assembled.  

Bridenstine stressed late Saturday that despite the early engine shutdown, the SLS hot fire shouldn't be regarded as a failure, but as a test the agency will surely learn from.

"I have absolutely total confidence in the team to figure out what the anomaly was, figure out how to fix it and then get after it again," he said. "Because we don't fail. We might have a setback, and then we come back and we do it again."

Editor's note: This story, originally posted at 6:53 p.m. EST, was updated at 9:39 p.m. EST with more details from NASA's post-test press conference. 

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

NASA is going to light up the most powerful rocket it's ever built Saturday (Jan. 16), though it won't go anywhere.

The test, scheduled for sometime between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. EST, will be the first test of the core of the Space Launch System (SLS). That's the rocket NASA hopes will one day carry a new generation of astronauts to the moon and handle other missions beyond the scope of existing commercial crew vehicles. As Live Science reported, it's a bit shorter than the Saturn V rockets that carried Apollo astronauts to the moon, but it's more powerful. It will produce 15% more thrust during liftoff and ascent compared with the Saturn V.

A live broadcast will begin at 4:20 p.m. EST here:

When the four RS-25 engines at the bottom of the SLS ignite, it will close a period of testing for the rocket that NASA has called its "green run," beginning with stress tests on the physical structure of the rocket and concluding with this live fire that is meant to make sure the core rocket stage is ready to launch. NASA has previously tested the solid rocket boosters that will eventually be affixed to the side of the rocket core for actual launches.

This core includes liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks, the four engines and the rocket's computers and avionics. All of them will be turned on as 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of supercooled propellant are loaded into the rocket and then ignited while the rocket remains fixed in place at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. When those engines are fired up, they will generate 1.6 million pounds of thrust, NASA said.

If the test goes as planned, it will put NASA on the road toward pairing the rocket core with an Orion spacecraft and the solid rocket boosters for actual launches. (Expect many further tests before any humans climb aboard.)

Originally published on Live Science.

NASA plans to ignite the most powerful rocket it's ever built on Jan. 17 according to a statement from the agency.

It will be the first firing of the Space Launch System (SLS), the long-awaited (and delayed) rocket ship that NASA plans to use for non-commercial human space flight. It's the centerpiece of NASA's Artemis program, a crewed mission to land, in language NASA frequently uses, "the first woman and next man" on the moon. 

However, during this first ignition, only the liquid fuel engines at the core of the rocket will be tested, without the solid fuel boosters that will one day help carry SLS into orbit.

When the SLS core test-fires, it will become the most powerful rocket ever ignited on Earth.

At 322 feet tall (98 meters), the SLS stands a head shorter than the 363-foot (110 m) Saturn V rockets that carried astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and '70s. But this rocket is substantially more powerful, producing 15% more thrust during liftoff and ascent. 

Raw power doesn't translate neatly into how much mass the rocket can carry into space.

When complete, if everything goes right, the SLS will have the capacity to carry more than 27 tons (24,000 kilograms) to the moon — much more than the 24 tons (22,000 kg) the Space Shuttle hauled into low-Earth orbit, though technically less than the Saturn V carried to the moon. (However, according to Live Science sister site Space.com, less of the SLS carrying capacity will be wasted on the different rocket stages and fuel, making the SLS an overall better cargo mover.)

The test will cap off an eight-part testing program NASA has dubbed the SLS "green run."

The seventh part, successfully completed Dec. 20, 2020, showed that the rocket could be loaded with 700,000 gallons (265,000 liters) of supercooled liquid fuel and then have that fuel removed without incident.

The hot fire will take place at at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

"During our wet dress rehearsal Green Run test, the core stage, the stage controller, and the Green Run software all performed flawlessly, and there were no leaks when the tanks were fully loaded and replenished for approximately two hours," Julie Bassler, SLS Stages manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in the statement. "Data from all the tests to date has given us the confidence to proceed with the hot fire."

The test will likely be streamed on NASA's YouTube channel.

Originally published on Live Science.

SpaceX has never flown a person into space in its Crew Dragon, its first crew-capable spacecraft. But already the company is showing off its much bigger, much shinier cousin: the Starship, built in Boca Chica, a coastal village at the southeastern tip of Texas, as part of a plan to carry giant crews into deep space. And NASA's administrator is bristling.

That's because, even though the Crew Dragon — which consists of a capsule for carrying cargo and crew into space on top of a Falcon 9 rocket — is still very much in the works, it's well behind schedule. Awarded a NASA contract in 2014, SpaceX initially said it would deliver an operational vehicle that astronauts could fly in by 2017. But that still hasn't happened. As of March, SpaceX has completed one uncrewed mission to the International Space Station using the Crew Dragon. It planned to launch a crewed mission later in 2019. But when a Crew Dragon capsule exploded during engine testing in April, SpaceX and NASA put off the planned first crewed mission.

On Sept. 30, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, told CNN that the Crew Dragon would be ready to carry astronauts into space in three to four months. But NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told CNN he wasn't convinced, and due to delays from SpaceX and Boeing (which is at work on a similarly delayed, competitor capsule called Starliner), he anticipated NASA buying more seats aboard Russian capsules.

Related: 10 Interesting Places in the Solar System We'd Like to Visit

The public friction followed an incident just days earlier in which Bridenstine undermined a much-ballyhooed Musk presentation of the completed Starship prototype with a critical tweet.

"I am looking forward to the SpaceX announcement. In the meantime, Commercial Crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. It's time to deliver," he said, referring to the NASA-funded Commercial Crew Program that is tasked with these joint government-private partnerships for crewed space transportation.

So why is SpaceX building two ships, and why is the company in a public tiff with the NASA administrator?

Crew Dragon is SpaceX's answer to a problem that began after NASA retired its space shuttle program, with its last flight in July 2011. At the time, the space agency didn't have any other space vehicle ready to ferry people and supplies into low Earth orbit where the International Space Station sits. (Since then, NASA has relied on Russian vehicles to travel to the ISS.)

Starship is something else entirely: a vehicle that, if it works as intended could serve Musk's stated goal of permanent settlement on Mars. It wasn't built to fulfill any NASA goals or contracts, won't launch from NASA facilities (at least at first), and appears to have been funded in large part by a Japanese billionaire looking to hitch a ride to the moon.

Under President Barack Obama, NASA farmed out the future of American low Earth orbital operations to the Commercial Crew program, which contracts with private companies to build spacecraft capable of ferrying both people and supplies to and from low Earth orbit, and transporting people on more distant missions to the moon and beyond. NASA has essentially hired SpaceX and Boeing to act as taxi services under its oversight, under the theory that the private companies could operate more efficiently than the bureaucratic space agency. Meanwhile, NASA has thrown its own engineering might behind a different project: the Space Launch System (SLS), a giant, heavy-lifting rocket, designed in-house at NASA, that's scheduled to form the backbone of crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit: a moon base, trips to Mars and potentially visits to asteroids.

Bridenstine, appointed under President Donald Trump, has continued to cheerlead for both of these projects. NASA wants Commercial Crew operational now, and, as Vice President Mike Pence announced in March 2019, it wants to return to the moon and land the first woman on the lunar surface by 2024 (i.e., the end of Trump's presidency, if he were to win a second term). In NASA's new vision, this 2024 mission will be the first step in establishing a permanent station in lunar orbit, and eventually a base at the moon's south pole.

But SLS's near-term prospects may not be so sunny. In October 2018, NASA's Office of the Inspector General reported that SLS is over budget and behind schedule. Bridenstine said in March that if the system isn't up to the task in time, NASA might rely on commercial rockets for a lunar mission, according to Spaceflight Now.

But that was before the Crew Dragon capsule exploded, setting back Commercial Crew Program plans as well. There have also been concerns about the safety of the Crew Dragon’s parachutes, according to SpaceNews.

So why build the shiny Starship (meant for travel beyond low Earth orbit) when Crew Dragon is still being perfected? 

In theory, Crew Dragon should really be as cheap and efficient as promised. The spacecraft is reusable, and it can ferry up to seven passengers into orbit aboard reusable Falcon 9 rockets — pointing to per-seat costs far less than the $85 million NASA spends for each person ferried into space in a rented spot aboard a cramped Russian ship. But the Dragon is little more than a scaled-up version of the little, round, flat-bottomed capsules that (with the notable exception of the big, gliding space shuttle) have dominated spacecraft design for decades.

For years, Musk has brought up Starship in his talks — SpaceX's vision for a vehicle to accomplish more or less what NASA has wanted to achieve with SLS, but on an even grander scale. And on Friday night (Sept. 28), he showed off the prototype MK-1 on the field where it had been assembled in South Texas.

At 30 feet (9 meters) across and a full 160 feet (50 m) tall even before mounting on its booster rocket, the giant, reusable, stainless steel vehicle represents an idea of how to do deep-space travel unmatched by anything else in the human playbook. (Once mounted on a not-yet-constructed reusable Super Heavy rocket, the whole assembly will stand over 380 feet, or 115 m tall.)

SpaceX says Starship in its final form will be able to carry at least 100 tons (90 metric tons) of cargo into low Earth orbit. And, perhaps carrying smaller loads, it's expected to be able to land on the moon and return to Earth. The company has also suggested Starship will one day carry up to 100 people, though that number would mean cramped quarters. Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era could lift similar masses, but  their crew capsules were comparably tiny, and never carried more than three people at a time into space. The planned Orion capsule, still the primary crew vehicle for the first stage of planned SLS missions, is expected to have a maximum crew capacity of six. (The Russian capsule maxes out at three.)

If Crew Dragon were on schedule and offering NASA a way into space without pricey, embarrassing Russian assistance, Bridenstine might have been happier to see Musk standing in a field in front of his giant, shiny new rocket ship telling the world it would perform a 12-mile (19 kilometer) test hop in a month or two, and reach orbit within six months. It's  relatively cheap, big enough for long-haul mission, and built by engineers able to bypass NASA's conservative, plodding culture ⁠— in sharp contrast to SLS. (SpaceX builders slapped the MK-1 together in just a few months, out in the open, exposed to the elements — a far cry from the giant, sterile hangars where NASA constructs its multiyear projects.) But Starship isn't on track to fill the gaps in NASA's  It doesn't have a booster rocket yet — needed to carry the Starship capsule into space — let alone life-support systems, the equipment needed to keep humans alive and well on the craft.

Bridenstine tweeted Thursday (Oct. 3) that the two had spoken on the phone, suggesting they'd reconciled. And Musk has said that SpaceX is still focused on Crew Dragon, estimating that Starship takes up just 5% of the company's resources. 

• The 22 Weirdest Military Weapons
• The 10 Most Dangerous Space Weapons Ever
• Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever

Originally published on Live Science.

NASA wants the world to know that putting boots on Mars is not just a sci-fi dream.

The space agency has been helping promote the new film "The Martian," which hits theaters across the United States today (Oct. 2), as a way to publicize its own plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s. 

Setting up a crewed outpost on Mars is NASA's chief long-term goal in the realm of human spaceflight. Indeed, the space agency's operational robotic Mars craft — the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) — can be seen as scouts for the human pioneers to come, NASA officials say. [5 Manned Mission to Mars Ideas] 

"The evolution of a Martian starts with our science — starts with our ground-truth that we get from our rovers — and it builds up to human exploration," Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science division, said Thursday (Oct. 1) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, during an event focusing on "The Martian" and the space agency's Red Planet plans.

Making it happen

NASA is working on a number of different fronts to make a crewed Mars mission happen, Green said.

For example, the agency and its partners are currently conducting an unprecedented yearlong mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). (Crewmembers generally stay aboard the orbiting lab for 5 to 6 months.)

Researchers are monitoring how NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko respond physiologically and psychologically to their extended time off Earth, in an effort to help prepare future pioneers for the long journey to Mars and back.

Furthermore, astronauts recently grew lettuce aboard the ISS — and ate it as well — as part of an experiment called "Veggie." The long-term goal of such projects is to make voyaging astronauts less dependent on Earth.

NASA is also developing a crew capsule called Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket to help get astronauts to, and from, distant destinations such as Mars. Orion aced its first uncrewed test flight last December, and the SLS is scheduled to make its maiden voyage in 2018.

Technological development is ongoing in other key areas as well. For instance, reseachers are working to improve solar-electric propulsion systems, which use energy from the sun to strip electrons off gas molecules, then send these ions streaming out the back of a spacecraft to generate thrust.

"These are going to be huge ion engines that will allow us to haul tens of tons of material back and forth to Mars," Green said.

Much of this heavy gear — which will consist of human habitat modules and other infrastructure — must make it down to the Martian surface. That's a tall order, since the 1-ton Curiosity rover maxed out NASA's "sky crane" landing system. [How to Land on Mars: Martian Tech Explained (Infographic)]

So NASA is developing new tech, such as inflatable "decelerators" and an enormous supersonic parachute, to help get hefty payloads down safely and softly on the Red Planet. NASA has tested a prototype of this system twice during balloon-aided flights off Hawaii; the decelerator worked perfectly, but the parachute tore both times.

Robotic Red Planet explorers

The science work being done by Red Planet robots feeds into the crewed effort as well. For example, data and images gathered by MRO have allowed researchers to determine that the dark streaks that appear on steep Martian slopes during warm weather are caused by liquid water — a resource that future pioneers might be able to exploit.

"We're developing the science tools now — the continually orbiting and roving on Mars — to be able to get us the information to know what Mars is really like," Green said.

NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in 2020, will continue to build up the knowledge base, while also making concerted strides toward human exploration.

One of the Mars 2020 rover's instruments is a technology demonstration designed to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Red Planet's atmosphere. Another instrument, a ground-penetrating radar, is capable of discovering subsurface aquifers of liquid water, if any exist in the landing zone, Green said.

The path to Mars

NASA is not planning to make the big leap directly from low Earth orbit, where the ISS circles, all the way to Mars. Rather, the agency first aims to test technologies and gain deep-space experience in the "proving ground" of Earth-moon space.

One proving-ground project is the Asteroid Redirect Mission, which involves plucking a boulder off a near-Earth asteroid with a robotic probe and towing the chunk of space rock to lunar orbit for future visitation by astronauts.

NASA plans to accomplish this — the robotic and crewed aspects (which will employ Orion and the SLS) — by 2025.

And the first crewed Mars mission may land not on the Red Planet but on one of its two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos. Such a strategy would prove out the technologies required to get to Mars orbit, and also dilute the risks and costs of a crewed Red Planet campaign, advocates say.

So some of the steps along the path to Mars still need to be worked out. But the ultimate destination — the Martian surface — is not in doubt, NASA officials say.

"[Putting] boots on Mars is possibly the most exciting thing humans will ever do," NASA chief Charles Bolden said last month during an event at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. that detailed NASA's crewed Mars plans.

"We have been engaged in getting to Mars — getting humans to Mars — for at least 40 years, beginning with the first precursors," he added. "I have no doubt that we can accomplish what we have set our minds to do."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

As NASA continues to plan out its ambitious mission to snag an asteroid and park it near the moon, the space agency will consider nearly 100 ideas submitted by potential partners.

NASA has selected the top 96 proposals of more than 400 submitted by outside groups in response to a June request for information (RFI) designed to aid its asteroid-capture mission and improve humanity's ability to protect Earth from dangerous space rocks, officials announced Sept. 4.

"This rich set of innovative ideas gathered from all over the world provides us with a great deal of information to factor into our plans moving forward," NASA associate administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement. "We're making great progress on formulating this mission, and we look forward to discussing further the responses we received to the RFI." [NASA's Asteroid-Capture Mission in Pictures]

The chosen proposals are broad and varied, addressing how to slow down an asteroid's rotation rate, nudge it off a potential collision course with Earth and grab samples for scientists to study here on our planet, among other topics, officials said.

NASA will examine the 96 concepts further during a public workshop from Sept. 30 through Oct. 2, enlisting the help of experts from within and outside the space agency.

NASA announced the asteroid-retrieval mission in April. The agency plans to drag a roughly 25-foot-wide (7.6 meters), 500-ton space rock to a stable orbit near the moon with a robotic probe. Once there, the near-Earth asteroid could be visited by astronauts using NASA's Orion capsule and huge Space Launch System rocket (SLS), both of which are in development.

The mission represents one way to meet a major goal laid out by President Barack Obama, who in 2010 directed NASA to send humans to an asteroid by 2025, then get them to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. (Orion and SLS are slated to fly crews together for the first time in 2021.)

Grabbing a space rock would also help develop asteroid-mining technology, yield insights about the solar system's early days and give humanity crucial experience working in deep space, advocates say.

The plan has its detractors, however, notably people who would prefer that NASA use the moon as a stepping stone to Mars. In June, for example, the U.S. House of Representatives' Science space subcommittee drew up a draft authorization bill that would nix the asteroid-retrieval mission and direct astronauts back to the moon.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

NASA's newly unveiled asteroid-capture plan is still in its early stages, but some details are already emerging about how the audacious mission might work.

President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request, which was released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a program that would snag an asteroid and park it near the moon. Astronauts would then visit the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, perhaps as early as 2021.

"This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet," NASA chief Charles Bolden said in a statement. [NASA's Asteroid-Capture Mission: How It Works (Images)]

The space agency is still working out how exactly to pull off the mission, which officials are calling the "Asteroid Initiative" or "Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization Mission" at the moment. But a few things are already clear.

For starters, the probe that will chase down and capture the 25-foot (8 meters) or so asteroid will be unmanned. And it will be powered by solar electric propulsion, which generates thrust by accelerating charged particles called ions.

Ion thrusters have been used on other NASA probes, including Dawn, which recently spent a year orbiting the huge asteroid Vesta before departing for the dwarf planet Ceres. But engineers will need to develop an advanced version for the Asteroid Initiative craft, since it will be towing a 500-ton space rock over millions of miles.

"This mission accelerates our technology development activities in high-powered solar electric propulsion," Michael Gazarik, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Technology, said in a statement.

Still, it may take several years for the probe to meet up with the asteroid. The spacecraft will then envelop the space rock with a bag of sorts, as a new video animation of NASA's Asteroid Initiative mission depicts, and de-spin the rock, likely using thrusters.

The asteroid will then be towed to a "stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it," NASA officials wrote in a mission description Wednesday.

These visits will be made possible by Orion and the Space Launch System, which are slated to begin flying crews together by 2021. The NASA animation shows astronauts aboard Orion meeting up with the space rock, which the retrieval probe is still holding onto.

In the video, the astronauts spacewalk their way over to the asteroid, accessing it by unwrapping a small section of the bag. They grab some pieces using a hammer and other tools, then come home with the samples in an ocean splashdown.

The overall asteroid-retrieval idea is similar to one proposed by researchers based at Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena. In a feasibility study published last year, the Keck team estimated the total cost of robotic capture and return at $2.6 billion.

NASA hasn't released its own cost estimates yet, but agency officials think they can get it done for less than that.

"The Keck study didn't take into account all the activities we already have going on in our base, so we wouldn't need $2.6 billion in new money," NASA chief financial officer Elizabeth Robinson said during a press conference Wednesday.

The Keck team also focused on grabbing a carbonaceous chondrite, she added. These asteroids are compositionally diverse, full of complex organic molecules, metals and volatile materials like water.

But carbonaceous chondrites also tend to be found farther away than other types of near-Earth asteroids, Robinson said, making their retrieval more time-consuming and expensive. At this point, NASA isn't so particular about the space rock it hopes to target.

"For those two reasons, we think that the price is likely to come in — of new money, new investment — at below that [$2.6 billion]," Robinson said.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to Live Science. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

NASA unveiled a $17.7 billion spending plan for 2014 today (April 10) that continues major ongoing space exploration projects, while including funds to kick-start an audacious new mission to capture a small asteroid and park it near the moon so astronauts can explore it by 2025.

The proposed NASA budget is part of President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request and would restore the U.S. space agency's funding back near its 2012 levels. The request is about $50 million less than NASA's last budget in 2012, but would restore deep cuts from sequestration, leaving the agency with a roughly $1 billion increase from the $16.6 billion spending bill the agency received for 2013.

NASA's plan to send a robotic spacecraft to lasso an asteroid and tow it to the moon is a stand-out item in the 2014 budget request. The goal is to capture an asteroid and bring it closer to Earth so that a manned mission can explore the space rock by 2025 — a major U.S. spaceflight goal set by Obama in 2010. [NASA's 2014 Budget Explained in Photos]

"We are developing a first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate and asteroid," NASA chief Charles Bolden said in a statement. "This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet. This asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA’s science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve the president’s goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025."

How to catch an asteroid

NASA's 2014 budget sets aside a $78 million down payment for the asteroid-capture mission, as well as additional funds to search for the candidate space rock for the initial rendezvous and capture, bringing the total funding for the project to about $105 million in 2014.

In all, NASA could spend up to $2.6 billion on the asteroid-capture mission through 2025, according to a study conducted by scientists with Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena last year. That study reviewed the feasibility of robotically capturing a 500-ton asteroid about 23 feet (7 meters) wide and placing it in orbit near the moon by 2025.

Bolden said NASA's new mega-rocket, the Space Launch System, and its Orion deep-space capsule would be used for the manned portions of the asteroid capture mission. The agency will also "develop new technologies like solar electric propulsion and laser communications -- all critical components of deep space exploration."

The Space Launch System and Orion capsule are part of NASA's Exploration Systems division, which is funded at $2.7 billion in 2014 in the new budget, down from $3 billion in 2012.

In addition to the asteroid mission, NASA's 2014 budget includes continued funding for the International Space Station, as well as increased support for private space taxis, which the space agency plans to rely on to launch American astronauts to the space station now that its shuttle fleet is retired. Commercial spaceflight funding in 2014 is pegged at $821.4 million, just over twice the amount received in 2012.

Planetary science, astrophysics and Earth

NASA's planetary science projects, which took a significant funding hit last year, would stay at a $1.2 billion level in 2014 (down from $1.5 billion in 2012) under the new budget request. Astrophysics funding would dip slightly to $642.3 million (down from $648.4 million in 2012).

Bolden said the planetary science budget will allow NASA to continue operating its many spacecraft exploring planets across the solar system, including the flagship Mars rover Curiosity and its smaller, older cousin Opportunity. Future Mars missions, such as the Maven orbiter launching later this year, new Insight Mars lander launching in 2016 and next Mars rover launching in 2020 will also be funded, he added.

Earth science and space weather funding, however, would rise in 2014 in the new budget, with NASA seeking $1.84 billion for Earth science missions (up from $1.75 billion) to revamp the agency's long-lived Landsat Earth-monitoring satellite constellation and develop new climate sensors. The space agency's Heliosphysics division, which overseas space weather and sun-monitoring missions, would rise to $653.7 million in 2014, up from $644.9 million last year.

NASA's next major space observatory, the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, will continue under the 2014 budget request, receiving about $658.2 million. The observatory is due to launch in 2018 and serve as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which will also receive continued funding in the 2014 request.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, sister site to Live Science.  Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden released a statement today (April 10) detailing his opinion of the space agency's new budget for next year.

The newly proposed 2014 budget allocates $17.7 billion for NASA — a $50 million decrease in funding to the space agency from the 2012 level.

The budget includes funding for ongoing human spaceflight and support for private space taxis that could launch American astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Bolden's statement reads as follows:

"Today, we unveil President Obama's Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for NASA — a $17.7 billion investment in our nation's future. Our budget ensures the United States will remain the world's leader in space exploration and scientific discovery for years to come, while making critical advances in aerospace and aeronautics to benefit the American people.

"This budget focuses on an ambitious new mission to expand America's capabilities in space, steady progress on new space and aeronautic technologies, continued success with commercial space partnerships, and far-reaching science programs to help us understand Earth and the universe in which we live. It keeps us competitive, opens the door to new destinations and vastly increases our knowledge. [NASA's 2014 Budget Explained in Photos]

"Our drive to make new discoveries and dare new frontiers continues to improve life for people everywhere and raise the bar of human achievement.

"The space station remains the centerpiece of our human exploration efforts. It allows us to perform technology demonstrations and scientific research only possible in microgravity, all while helping to improve life here on Earth and plan for missions into deep space.

"With America now successfully resupplying the International Space Station with cargo launched from the U.S. by American companies, this budget ensures that our astronauts will also be launched from U.S. soil on spacecraft built by American industry within the next four years, ending our reliance on other nations and opening up new commercial markets in space.

"We are developing a first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid. This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet. This asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA's science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve the president's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025. We will use existing capabilities such as the Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and develop new technologies like solar electric propulsion and laser communications — all critical components of deep space exploration.

"NASA's ground-breaking science missions are reaching farther into our solar system, revealing unknown aspects of our universe and providing critical data about our home planet and threats to it. Spacecraft are speeding to Jupiter, Pluto and Ceres while satellites peer into other galaxies, spot planets around other stars, and uncover the origins of the universe. The budget funds our amazing fleet of scientific spacecraft, including strong support for study of the Earth and its response to natural or human-induced changes. And on the heels of the most daring mission to Mars in history last year, provides funding to launch another mission to the Red Planet. We also will continue our steady progress to develop and conduct critical tests on the James Webb Space Telescope, leading to its planned launch in 2018.

"While reaching for new heights in space, we're creating new jobs right here on Earth — especially for the next generation of American scientists and engineers — by supporting cutting edge aeronautics and space technology innovations and research and development that will help fuel the nation's economy for years to come."

This story was provided by SPACE.com, sister site to Live Science.  Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+.

The proposed budget for 2014 unveiled by President Barack Obama and White House officials today includes $17.7 billion for NASA, a $50 million decrease from the space agency's 2012 funding level.

NASA's proposed 2014 budget will include funding for the agency's ongoing human spaceflight program for deep-space exploration of an asteroid or Mars, as well as support for private space taxis to launch American astronauts on trips to and from the International Space Station.

Bolden will discuss NASA's 2014 budget during a White House press conference today at 1:30 p.m. EDT  (1730 GMT) and a NASA teleconference today at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). You can follow the NASA 2014 budget briefings live on SPACE.com, courtesy of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA TV.

The space agency's plans for a new mega-rocket, the Space Launch System for deep-space exploration, as well as the James Webb Space Telescope — the infrared successor to NASA's long-lived Hubble Space Telescope. Read on for a look at the highlights of NASA funding under the 2014 budget proposal, according to White House documents.

The 2014 budget proposal for NASA will do the following:

• Provides $17.7 billion in discretionary funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a decrease of 0.3 percent, or about $50 million, below the 2012 enacted level. While making tough choices, the Budget reinforces the agency’s current balanced portfolio of aeronautics and space technology development, Earth and space science, the development of rockets and capsules to carry explorers deeper into space, and the use of innovative commercial partnerships for crew and cargo transport to the International Space Station.  
• Includes funding needed to develop a Commercial Crew capability, with the intent of supporting a new industry that regains the capability to send American astronauts into space from U.S. soil and ends the need to pay foreign providers to transport American astronauts to the International Space Station.  
•  Increases investment in space technologies, such as advanced in-space propulsion and space propellant storage, which are necessary to increase America’s capabilities in space, bring the cost of space exploration down, and pave the way for other Federal Government and commercial space activities.  
• Fully funds the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, two key elements for pushing the boundaries of human space exploration. This funding level will enable a flight test of Orion in 2014 and the Space Launch System in 2017.  
• Keeps development of the James Webb SpaceTelescope, the more powerful successor to the Hubble SpaceTelescope, on track for a 2018 launch.  
• Provides over $1.8 billion for Earth Science to revamp the Landsat program, develop climate sensors for the Joint Polar Satellite System, and conduct numerous other satellite and research efforts.  
• Begins work on a mission to rendezvous with—and then move—a small asteroid. Astronauts would later visit the asteroid and return samples to Earth, achieving one of the agency’s major goals in a more cost-effective manner.

• Continues the agency’s important role in the Nation’s aeronautics research and development portfolio, including a new initiative to make lighter composite materials more easily useable in aviation.  
• Funds research on the International Space Station, while identifying efficiencies in operations and space flight support.  
• Consolidates $47.5 million of small science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs from across NASA into larger programs at other agencies to achieve the best return on investment, while attaining tangible Government-wide STEM education goals. The Budget preserves $67.5 million for the Space Grant and Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment programs at NASA, as well as key minority-serving education programs, and refocuses an additional $26.8 million from other NASA education and outreach programs to facilitate the wider application of its best education assets in close coordination with the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+.

NASA's funding outlook for the next year will be revealed today (April 10), when President Barack Obama releases his 2014 federal budget request.

A boost over the $17.7 billion allocated to the space agency in last year's request would be a surprise in these tough fiscal times. But NASA is expected to receive $100 million to jump-start a bold asteroid-capture mission, which would drag a 500-ton space rock near the moon for research and exploration purposes.

"NASA is in the planning stages of an innovative mission to accomplish the president's challenge of sending humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 in a more cost-effective and potentially quicker time frame than under other scenarios," a senior administration official told SPACE.com.

"This mission would combine the best of NASA's asteroid identification, technology development and human exploration efforts to capture and redirect a small asteroid to just beyond the moon to set up a human mission using existing resources and equipment, including the heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule that have been under development for several years," the official added, referring to NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. [NASA's Asteroid-Capture Plan (Video)]

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) said last week that the proposed mission aims to get astronauts to the captured space rock by 2021, which is also the year that SLS and Orion are scheduled to begin carrying crews.

The overall cost of such a robotic asteroid-retrieval mission — not including any astronaut visits — is estimated at about $2.6 billion, according to a feasibility study led by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies that was published last year.

The 2014 budget request follows closely on the heels of sequestration, which on March 1 imposed a broad 5-percent cut on many federal agencies, including NASA. Sequestration and several other small cuts have reduced the space agency's actual 2013 budget to around $16.6 billion, so NASA is now looking for ways to trim costs.

NASA chief Charles Bolden has said that SLS, the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope and the commercial crew program are top agency priorities, so they may not be affected much by the cuts. NASA's planetary science program, on the other hand, may have to cough up a relativately large share.

Planetary science also suffered in last year's federal budget request, which cut the robotic exploration program by about 20 percent while keeping NASA's overall top line pretty much flat.

Bolden will discuss NASA's 2014 budget during a White House press conference today at 1:30 p.m. EDT  (1730 GMT) and a NASA teleconference today at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT).

You can follow the NASA 2014 budget briefings live on SPACE.com, courtesy of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA TV.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, sister site to Live Science.  Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

NASA will likely get $100 million next year to jump-start an audacious program to drag an asteroid into orbit around the moon for research and exploration purposes, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson says.

The $100 million will probably be part of President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, which is expected to be released next week, Nelson (D-FL) said. The money is intended to get the ball rolling on the asteroid-retrieval project, which also aims to send astronauts out to the captured space rock in 2021.

"This is part of what will be a much broader program," Nelson said Friday (April 5), during a visit to Orlando. "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars."

NASA's plan involves catching a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) with a robotic spacecraft, then towing the space rock to a stable lunar orbit, Nelson said. Astronauts would then be sent to the asteroid in 2021 using NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket, both of which are in development.

The idea is similar to one proposed last year by researchers based at Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena.

"Experience gained via human expeditions to the small returned NEA would transfer directly to follow-on international expeditions beyond the Earth-moon system: to other near-Earth asteroids, [the Mars moons] Phobos and Deimos, Mars and potentially someday to the main asteroid belt," the Keck team wrote in a feasibility study of their plan.

NASA will need much more than this initial $100 million to make the asteroid-retrieval mission happen. The Keck study estimated that it would cost about $2.6 billion to drag a 500-ton space rock back near the moon.

Nelson said he thinks the Obama Administration is in favor of the asteroid-retrieval plan. In 2010, the president directed NASA to work to get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

News of the potential $100 million allocation is not a complete surprise, as Aviation Week reported late last month that NASA was seeking that amount in 2014 for an asteroid-retrieval program.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, sister site to Live Science.  Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

Though asteroids are viewed as stepping stones in NASA's manned march to Mars, sending humans to a space rock may actually be a bigger challenge than putting boots on the Red Planet.

Mars is farther away than any near-Earth asteroid that NASA would target, but this disadvantage may be outweighed by the greater knowledge scientists have gained of the Red Planet thanks to the many Mars missions that have launched over the years, experts say.

Further, mapping out an asteroid mission is nearly impossible at this point, since NASA does not yet know where it's going.

"There are still no good asteroid targets for such a mission, a necessary prerequisite for determining mission length and details such as the astronauts’ exposure to radiation and the consumables required," states a December 2012 report from the U.S. National Research Council (NRC). [How NASA Will Explore Asteroids (Gallery)]

The road to Mars

Landing astronauts on Mars has been the long-term goal of NASA's human spaceflight program for decades, but the agency's vision of how to get there was shaken up recently.

NASA had viewed the moon as a stepping stone, working to get humans to Earth's natural satellite by 2020 under a program called Constellation, which was initiated during the presidency of George W. Bush. But President Barack Obama cancelled Constellation in 2010, after an independent review panel found it to be significantly under-funded and behind schedule.

The Obama administration instead directed NASA to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. The agency is developing a new crewed capsule called Orion and a huge rocket called the Space Launch System to make it all happen.

The new "asteroid-next" plan has not been enthusiastically embraced by NASA or the broader space community, the NRC report concluded.

"Despite isolated pockets of support for a human asteroid mission, the committee did not detect broad support for an asteroid mission inside NASA, in the nation as a whole or from the international community," write the authors of the report, which is called "NASA's Strategic Direction and the Need for a National Consensus."

A tough proposition

The NRC report was based on research, interviews, site visits and analysis conducted by a 12-member independent committee over the course of about five months in 2012.

One of the people the study team met with was Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

Gerstenmaier "talked about how NASA had discovered, in the two years that had elapsed by the time he was speaking to us, just how hard [a manned asteroid mission] was," committee member and space policy expert Marcia Smith said during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group on Jan. 30.

"He said in many respects, it's easier to go to Mars, because we know a lot about Mars," Smith added. "We know where it is, and we've done all these reconnaissance missions already, so we have a knowledge base from which to work in terms of sending humans, whereas no particular asteroid has been selected yet."

While sending astronauts to an asteroid has never been done before, unmanned probes have successfully rendezvoused with the objects in deep space multiple times.

For example, NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited the protoplanet Vesta — the second-largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — for more than a year before departing to head to the belt's largest denizen, Ceres, last September. And in 2005, Japan's Hayabusa probe plucked some pieces off the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa, sending them back to Earth for analysis.

NASA plans to launch its own asteroid-sampling mission, called Osiris-Rex, in 2016. And two private companies — Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries — intend to loft reconnaissance spacecraft over the next few years, kicking off an ambitious efforts to mine water, metals and other resources from asteroids.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to Live Science. Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

With President Barack Obama taking the oath of office to begin his second term today, it kicks off four more years for NASA to pursue its audacious goal of sending astronauts farther into deep space than ever before.

Two major pieces of NASA's deep-space exploration program — full-size replicas of the agency's new Orion space capsule and Mars rover Curiosity — will make an appearance during Obama's inaugural parade today (Jan. 21).

NASA's "Mohawk Guy" Bobak Ferdowsi, a Curiosity flight director renowned for his hairstyle, will also march in the parade, and has promised a new hairdo to mark the event. Several NASA astronauts, including Michael Massimino —the agency's most followed space man on Twitter (@Astro_Mike) — will appear in the parade, too.

In his first term as president, Obama canceled NASA's moon-oriented Constellation program and directed the space agency to pursue a new vision of deep-space exploration, a program that aims to send the first manned mission to an asteroid by 2025. By the mid-2030s, the target is Mars.

Obama unveiled the space exploration vision in April 2010 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. A year later, NASA's space shuttle program — already winding down by the time Obama first took office — flew its final missions. In 2012, the iconic winged space planes were delivered to museums across the country. [NASA Photos: Obama's 2nd Inauguration]

At the same time, NASA was busy developing a new spacecraft for deep-space exploration, the Orion space capsule, as well as a giant rocket called the Space Launch System to boost the capsule off the planet. The agency is developing another craft, the Space Exploration Vehicle, designed to make the trip to a near-Earth asteroid or other deep-space destination.

Here's a look at NASA's human spaceflight projects that will be under way during Obama's second term:

Deep space exploration

Construction has already begun on NASA's first Orion space capsule to fly and will continue throughout this year. That prototype is expected to launch unmanned atop an existing Delta 4 Heavy rocket in 2014 for an initial test.  A more ambitious unmanned test flight around the moon is planned for 2017, when an Orion capsule will make an unmanned trip around the moon after launching on the first Space Launch System booster.

The first operational flights of the complete Orion and Space Launch System designs are expected by 2021. By that time, Obama's second term will have been over for several years. [Curiosity Rover Rolls In Inauguration Parade (Video)]

Last week, NASA finalized a deal with the European Space Agency on the Orion capsule's service module, which will provide power, propulsion and other vital systems for the space capsule beginning with the 2017 test flight. The move, NASA officials said, sets the stage for a true international approach to space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.

"Space has long been a frontier for international cooperation as we explore," Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for Exploration System Development, said in a Jan. 16 statement. "This latest chapter builds on NASA's excellent relationship with ESA as a partner in the International Space Station, and helps us move forward in our plans to send humans farther into space than we’ve ever been before."

In addition to exploring a near-Earth asteroid and Mars, NASA is also eyeing a potential plan to build a deep-space station on the far side of the moon that could serve as a stepping stone to the asteroid or Mars flights.

Rise of private space taxis

While NASA works on new spacecraft for deep-space missions, the agency is also supporting the development of new private manned spaceflight vehicles that could ferry American astronauts into and from low-Earth orbit.

NASA hopes the commercial spacecraft will be ready by 2017. Until then, the space agency is dependent on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for flying Americans into orbit.

NASA already has billion-dollar deals with two private companies, SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., and Orbital Sciences Corp., in Virginia, to provide commercial cargo deliveries to the International Space Station aboard robotic spacecraft.

Last year, SpaceX flew two missions to the space station using its Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft, and plans to launch its third flight sometime in March under a $1.6 billion contract for 12 missions. Orbital Sciences is planning to launch the first test flights of its Antares rocket and Cygnus space capsule later this year as part of a $1.9 billion contract for eight missions.

In December, NASA awarded a total of $30 million in funding to three different private spaceflight companies to support their work on new commercial spaceships. SpaceX, aerospace veteran Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp. received different amounts of the funding package to spur their individual projects.

SpaceX is working to scale up its Dragon capsule to carry seven astronauts on roundtrip orbital flights. Boeing, too, is working on a space capsule (called Commercial Space Transportation 100), while Sierra Nevada is developing a small space plane dubbed Dream Chaser for its entry. A fourth contender, the company Blue Origin founded by billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is also competing for NASA funding.

NASA provided an update on the four companies' projects last week, with each firm promising big steps forward for their space vehicles in 2013.

"I think the partnership between NASA and each of these companies clearly shows that we have a very vibrant space industry in the United States," said Ed Mango, NASA's manager for the commercial crew program. "The four companies here today are capable and are the leading edge of what it takes to get folks back into low-Earth orbit over time."

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to Live Science. You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

NASA is serious about sending astronauts back to the moon's neighborhood and will likely unveil its ambitious plans soon now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected, experts say.

The space agency has apparently been thinking about setting up a manned outpost beyond the moon's far side, both to establish a human presence in deep space and to build momentum toward a planned visit to an asteroid in 2025.

The new plans have probably already been cleared with the Obama Administration but have been kept under wraps in case Republican candidate Mitt Romney won Tuesday night's (Nov. 6) presidential election, said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University.

"NASA has been evolving its thinking, and its latest charts have inserted a new element of cislunar/lunar gateway/Earth-moon L2 sort of stuff into the plan," Logsdon told SPACE.com. (The Earth-moon L2 is a so-called libration point where the two bodies' gravitational pulls roughly balance out, allowing spacecraft to essentially park there.) [Gallery: Visions of Deep-Space Station Missions]

"They've been holding off announcing that until after the election," Logsdon added, noting that Romney had pledged to reassess and possibly revise NASA's missions and direction.

A new vision of human space exploration

In 2010, President Obama directed NASA to work toward sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. To reach such deep-space destinations, the agency is developing a huge rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and a crew capsule named Orion.

But astronauts likely won't head straight to a space rock when SLS and Orion are ready to fly together in 2021. In the last year, word has begun leaking out that NASA wants to explore Earth-moon L2, a point in space that lies beyond the moon's far side, as a precursor.

Rumors currently point toward parking a spacecraft at the Earth-moon L2 gateway, so NASA (and perhaps international partners) can learn more about supporting humans in deep space. Astronauts stationed there could also aid in lunar exploration — by teleoperating rovers on the moon's surface, for example.

NASA officials think they can pull off such manned missions without busting their budget, which stands at $17.7 billion in the proposed 2013 federal budget.

"They're not talking about plans that imply significant budget increases," Logsdon said. "It gives a more focused use for SLS and Orion before an asteroid mission."

Moon missions coming soon?

Exploration of Earth-moon L2 could get started as early as 2021 with the first manned flight of SLS and Orion, which NASA calls Exploration Mission 2. (Exploration Mission 1 is the initial, unmanned test launch of SLS, slated for late 2017.)

"I'm not privy to the specifics of this, but one could conceive of the second SLS mission being the start of activity in cislunar space, rather than just being a lunar orbit mission," Logsdon said.

We may know soon enough. NASA higher-ups have dropped hints recently that a big announcement may indeed be in the offing before too much longer.

"We just recently delivered a comprehensive report to Congress outlining our destinations which makes clear that SLS will go way beyond low-Earth orbit to explore the expansive space around the Earth-moon system, near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately, Mars," NASA deputy chief Lori Garver said at a conference in September.

"Let me say that again: We're going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars," Garver added.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to Live Science. Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwallor SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

NASA is contemplating space journeys far beyond a near-Earth asteroid, the moon or Mars for its new heavy-lift rocket in development. The Space Launch System (SLS), as it is called, could instead visit the moon of Pluto or return samples from other outer planets.

An unmanned flyby mission to Pluto's Charon, sample return missions to Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's Titan, or a sample-gathering flight through Jupiter's atmosphere or the ice water jets of Saturn's Enceladus — all are said to be possible with the 286,000-pound (130,000 kilograms) launch capabilities of the Space Launch System.

The first launch of SLS is planned for 2017, but it will not have an upper stage and will be able to put only 154,000 pounds (70,000 kg) into low-Earth orbit. Beginning in 2022, however, the rocket is expected to have more powerful boosters and an upper stage to give it an ability to deliver 286,000 pounds to Earth orbit.

Such large cargos will be transported under a nose-cone fairing that will have a diameter of about 30 feet (10 meters), giving the Space Launch System a useful payload volume of about 38,846 cubic feet (1,100 cubic meters). The rocket itself has a diameter of about 25 feet (8.4 meters). [Photos: NASA's Space Launch System for Deep Space Flights]

Science possibilities

It is this combination of a very large lift capability and nose-cone volume that is expected to enable ambitious missions such as sample return from the outer planets.

"Most of the science community hasn't thought beyond current lift capability. Scientists haven't thought about what mass and volume they need to use," Kenneth Bruce Morris, a Booz Allen Hamilton senior associate, said at the 63rd annual International Astronautical Congress in Naples, Italy, on Oct 5. Morris' presentation was co-authored with the Marshall Space Flight Center. Before joining Booz Allen Hamilton, Morris was NASA's lead for Ares V utilization planning under the now-canceled Constellation program.

Because of the SLS payload capability, future science spacecraft will be able to carry large propulsion systems and more fuel, enabling them to reduce their mission time and carry more instruments. To reach the outer planets, previous spacecraft have had to make multiple gravity-assist maneuvers around the inner planets to reach the velocity needed, costing valuable time. The SLS could increase mission time by years, since its larger propulsion systems would enable more direct trajectories. 

Another advantage of SLS is the potential to reduce the number of separate launches complex missions will require. For example, with existing boosters, an outer planet sample mission would require many launches to assemble the spacecraft. With SLS, however, the mission could be achieved with fewer launches, or even just one, reducing complexity.

In addition to sample return, such large scientific spacecraft could deliver multiple rovers to the surface of Venus or carry the substantial shielding needed for operating long term in the harsh radiation environment of the Jupiter system.

"We've been talking with the science community. Most of our focus has been on targeted one-on-one interactions between SLS and high-priority science missions in the coming decades, discussing mutually beneficial options," Stephen Creech, SLS strategic development manager for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, told SPACE.com.

Design milestones

On July 25, the SLS program passed two key reviews, for combined system definition and system requirements, to move toward its preliminary design review, scheduled for late 2013. The SLS critical design review is scheduled for early 2014. These various checkpoints pave the way for the finished design of SLS to begin construction in earnest.

As well as missions to the outer planets, the SLS could launch space telescopes that operate at the thermally stable second sun-Earth Lagrange point, a spot in space where gravity from the sun and Earth balance each other out. Designed to observe ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared light, these space telescopes would use huge mirrors with diameters from about 24 feet to 52 feet (16 meters). A 52-foot mirror telescope could find and characterize alien planets around other stars.

Such large imaging systems would also be useful for the U.S. government's National Reconnaissance Office satellites and other Department of Defense spacecraft. Launching large robotic spacecraft capable of traveling to geostationary orbit to service telecommunication satellites is another possible use for SLS. [Video: SLS — Leaving Low-Earth Orbit Behind]

Because the Space Launch System would be able to deliver very large structures with a few launches, it could also put into orbit, for assembly, the component parts of a space-based solar power system. Such a solar satellite could be a commercial venture.

Private space stations

Another commercial venture the SLS could help launch is a Bigelow Aerospace space station. NASA's Creech has confirmed to SPACE.com that the space agency has spoken to Bigelow.

The company has proposed a private space station, leased by governments and corporations for research, which would consist of four of Bigelow's inflatable BA330 modules, a docking node and a propulsion unit. Each BA330 has a total volume of 11,653 cubic feet (330 cubic meters). The first BA330 is to be launched on a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket in 2015.

The SLS could also enable Lagrange point gateway architecture for manned exploration, said Jim Chilton, Boeing's space exploration vice president and Space Launch System stages program manager. Speaking at the astronautical congress, Chilton's presentation showed how two SLS launches, using 15-foot-long nose cones capable of fitting 154,000 pounds inside, would be able to deliver the modules for a Lagrange point platform. Located at the Earth-moon L2 Lagrange point, beyond our natural satellite's orbit, the platform would be a waypoint for refueling.

Under NASA's exploration plans, the manned Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, launching atop an SLS rocket, would go to an asteroid after a trip around the moon and back in 2021. The asteroid mission would be a deep-space trip for the astronauts; an intermediate test mission could see the crew go to such a platform at the L2 Lagrange point.

Lockheed, the primary Orion contractor, is also considering alternate missions for the space capsule. Josh Hopkins, Lockheed Martin Space Systems' space exploration architect, described to SPACE.com an in-orbit experiment to create a centrifugal force onboard Orion that would give astronauts a gravity-like experience.

"We've been looking at an artificial gravity test where you put an Orion in a tether with a mass and spin them up and Orion is not designed to be spun up and so we're working on that, we're interested in it," he told SPACE.com.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, siste site to LiveScience. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

The Canadian Space Agency is in early talks to launch a rover beyond Earth orbit aboard NASA's huge new deep space rocket, according to a senior Canadian official.

Canada recently unveiled seven rover prototypes that cost a total of $60 million. Some of the rovers have been field-tested with NASA and impressed officials with the U.S. space agency, according to the CSA's Gilles Leclerc.

As such, Leclerc said NASA is considering flying a rover on an early flight of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is slated to become operational in the early 2020s. However, he allowed the discussions are preliminary given the upcoming U.S. presidential election and uncertainty about future NASA funding.

"I don't want to speak for NASA — it is touchy — but there are opportunities for missions around the moon or on the moon," said Leclerc, the CSA's director-general of space exploration. "You can certainly envisage automatic robotic missions to the moon." [Photos: NASA's Space Launch System]

The SLS has two publicly disclosed missions on the roster: a flight in 2017 to send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft into lunar orbit, and another potential flight in 2021 to take a crew beyond the moon. Any SLS flight beyond those two missions will require further study.

"NASA does not have plans for either (mission) to land on a foreign surface," NASA spokeswoman Rachel Kraft told SPACE.com via email.

"As we continue to define future mission requirements, NASA anticipates that we will continue to engage in co-operative activities with CSA involving Canadian rovers and associated technologies," Kraft wrote in a follow-up statement.

Falling funds

The CSA is facing a 20 percent budget cut  — to $310 million, or USD315 million — in the coming year, as well as overall uncertainty about government spending priorities. Canada is currently undertaking a review of government aerospace programs, with a report expected to be submitted to the government late in 2012.

Money for the rovers came from about $110 million in stimulus funding the CSA received in 2009. (The other portion of the stimulus money went to Canadarm prototypes.) The initial plan for the rovers was to develop technologies for the floundering auto sector in Canada during the recession, Leclerc said.

But now that the stimulus funding is spent, there's not much more money coming to upgrade the rovers to flight status. The agency has about $2 million available every year for rover work, Leclerc added.

"We will see what the government does with the aerospace and space review, and how high space ranks as a priority," he said. "Somewhere in the future we can develop a rover (for flight), or at least provide signature technologies in robotics and vision systems. That's our Canadian heritage."

Sales on wheels

More than 40 institutions received funding for rover development, including name-brand Canadian space companies such as sensor manufacturer Neptec and Canadarm maintainer MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates.

Leclerc said that some companies have already been able to find new applications for the rover technology.

Montreal-based Bombardier, for example, transferred some of its rover technologies into a new, self-commanded electric version of an all-terrain vehicle, according to Leclerc.

Additionally, Hydrogenics — which manufactures fuel cells — received a $90 million contract in early October. The contract, from an undisclosed buyer, purchases technology similar to the kind Hydrogenics used for the rovers, Leclerc said. Hydrogenics touts the deal as its largest single order from an original equipment manufacturer.

Neptec Design Group was prime contractor for two of the rovers, called Juno and Artemis, which have been field-tested several times with NASA. Company president Iain Christie said he was grateful for the funding the CSA provided to develop the rovers and a rover vision system, but added he cannot continue to work on them without more money.

Certainty needs to come from the CSA and the government as a whole regarding Canada's space priorities, he added. Christie said he remains hopeful that one of his rovers could take flight on the SLS, though.

"We don’t have the resources to do a lot of work on our own without knowing what the end point is going to be," he said. "If Canada is not going to be interested in participating in an international mission on the moon, there is no point to us having a Canadian rover."

This story was provied by SPACE.com, sister site to LiveScience. Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Newly efficient assembly methods should lower the price tag of NASA's giant new rocket for deep space missions, agency officials say.

Engineers at ATK Space Systems in Utah are putting together the solid rocket boosters for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lifter, which is designed to blast astronauts toward near-Earth asteroids, Mars and other destinations beyond Earth orbit.

The new boosters are similar to the ones that helped loft NASA's now-retired space shuttles to orbit. But several new upgrades and improvements should allow the new boosters to be built more cheaply and efficiently, officials said.

"We are embracing innovation both technically and in our management processes as we design and build SLS," Alex Priskos, SLS booster manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said in a statement. "Through the use of new streamlined approaches and techniques, we have been able to drive down costs and enhance the reliability of the hardware." [Video: Building SLS More Efficiently]

For example, ATK replaced traditional X-ray inspections with an ultrasonic examination of the booster's nozzle, allowing technicians to evaluate the hardware on the production floor, officials said. And the company reduced the number of moves during one stage of booster assembly from 47 to seven, decreasing both the time required to complete the process and the chance of damage to parts in transit.

In all, new handling methodologies can reduce the booster's total assembly time by 46 percent, ATK engineers estimate.

"As we were challenged with decreased budgets and a more streamlined workforce, we knew we had to make changes in order to stay competitive, but we also know the importance of ensuring we deliver a safe and reliable product for America’s human space flight program," said former astronaut Charlie Precourt, general manager and vice president of ATK’s Space Launch Division, in a statement.

The improvements have been implemented throughout the manufacturing of Qualification Motor-1, the next full-scale test article for the SLS booster, NASA officials said. Engineers are preparing the motor for a ground test in the spring of 2013.

The SLS first stage will be powered by four RS-25 engines — which served as the main engines for the space shuttle fleet — flanked by two five-segment solid rocket boosters.

In its initial configuration, the SLS will be capable of launching 70 metric tons of payload and will generate 10 percent more thrust than NASA's Saturn 5 rocket, which blasted Apollo astronauts toward the moon. It will stand about 320 feet tall (97.5 meters).

However, NASA wants to scale SLS up eventually, creating variants that can loft 105 and 130 metric tons, respectively. That booster version would stand 400 feet tall (122 m), making the world's largest and most powerful rocket. Manned missions to Mars will require the 130-ton version, NASA officials have said.

SLS is designed to launch NASA's Orion crew capsule. The first test flight of the huge rocket is slated for 2017, and NASA wants the SLS-Orion combo to be launching astronauts by 2021. The agency is targeting a $500 million per-launch cost for SLS once it's flying regularly, though things could change as the rocket program matures.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

The giant rocket NASA is building to carry astronauts to Mars and other destinations in deep space may cost $500 million per launch when it's flying regularly, space agency officials said Tuesday (Sept. 11).

NASA is eyeing $500 million as a target right now for the Space Launch System (SLS) when it begins making roughly one flight per year, which could begin happening after 2023. But things could change as the SLS program — which was just announced in September 2011 — matures, officials said.

"We've estimated somewhere around the $500 million number is what an average cost per flight is," SLS deputy project manager Jody Singer, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said Tuesday during a presentation at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ SPACE 2012 conference in Pasadena, Calif.

"But again, I'd caution you, because we still are working on our contracts and where we're going," Singer added. "Plus we're in the development phase, and you really have to have a little bit more of a steady-state flight launch to be able to get the more efficient launch rate. But that's the number we're using right now." [Photos: NASA's Space Launch System]

NASA's next big rocket

NASA unveiled the SLS just two months after the last flight of its venerable space shuttle program, which was grounded in July 2011 after 30 years of orbital service.

But the giant rocket and the capsule it will loft — known as the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle — are not a replacement for the space shuttle. That space-taxi role will be filled by private American spaceships, which NASA is grooming to be ready to carry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit by 2017.

The SLS-Orion combo, on the other hand, is a deep space transportation system. In 2010, President Barack Obama charged NASA with getting astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 and then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s, and SLS-Orion is how NASA will try to make that happen.

The first test flight of the SLS is slated for 2017, and NASA hopes the rocket will begin lofting astronauts in 2021.

If the SLS is able to meet the $500 million target, it would end up being cheaper to fly than the space shuttle. The shuttle program cost about $209 billion (in 2010 dollars) over its lifetime and made a total of 135 flights, yielding an average cost per launch of more than $1.5 billion.

Two or three flights per year

In its initial incarnation, the SLS will be capable of lifting 70 metric tons of payload. But NASA eventually plans to build several variants of the rocket, allowing it to carry 105 tons in one configuration and 130 tons in another.

"We can move from one configuration to the other configuration with not a lot of cost," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said Tuesday at the SPACE 2012 conference.

"It's clear for the Mars missions that we talk about, we're going to need the 130 metric ton capability," Gerstenmaier added. "For a lot of other missions — from the science missions, et cetera — they can really be supported well with the 105 metric ton capability rocket."

NASA is also aiming to launch the SLS-Orion combo two or three times per year eventually, Gerstenmaier said. That rate should be sufficient to take care of the agency's human spaceflight business beyond Earth orbit, and it will help keep costs down.

"We don't want to build a huge infrastructure that supprts a very high flight rate — then it'd cost us a lot if we're at substantially less than that flight rate," Gerstenmaier said.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

The recent rise of private spaceflight has stolen some of the spotlight away from NASA, but the space agency doesn't mind a bit.

Last month, SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule became the first private vehicle ever to dock with the International Space Station (ISS), and the craft will likely start making regular supply runs to the orbiting outpost this autumn.

SpaceX hopes a crewed version of Dragon will be ready to fly astronauts to the station by 2015 or so, and a handful of other companies are developing their own manned spaceships with similar timelines in mind. But NASA is not threatened by this new private space race; rather, the agency has actively encouraged it, so that it is able to focus its human spaceflight efforts farther afield.

"It was an effort that will revolutionize the way we carry out space exploration, with the private sector taking over responsibility for transportation to the ISS," NASA chief Charlie Boldensaid on May 25 after Dragon's historic docking. "This will free NASA up to focus on the really hard stuff, like sending our astronauts to an asteroid and, eventually, on to Mars." [Top 10 Private Spaceships]

A big shift for NASA

Over the past several decades, NASA spent about $209 billion sending astronauts (along with some cargo) to low-Earth orbit and back. That's the rough cost of the agency's space shuttle program, which retired last July after 30 years of orbital service.

In 2010, President Barack Obama instructed NASA to get astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. The agency is depending on private firms to take over the shuttle's orbital-taxi role while it puts its limited resources toward achieving these ambitious deep-space goals.

NASA has given money to four companies — SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing and Sierra Nevada — in the hopes that at least two of them can have crewed vehicles up and running by 2017. Until that happens, NASA astronauts will continue to hitch rides on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, at a cost of roughly $62 million per seat.

So agency officials were elated with the success of Dragon's demonstration mission.

"Now more than ever we're counting on the inventiveness of American companies and American workers to make the International Space Station and other low-Earth orbit destinations accessible to any and all who have dreams of space travel," Bolden said in a statement last week, after Dragon splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.

NASA still busy

For its part, NASA is working on ways to get astronauts to near-Earth asteroids and beyond. It's developing a huge heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and a capsule known as the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.

In its initial configuration, the SLS will stand 320 feet (97.5 meters) tall and be capable of lofting 70 metric tons of payload. But NASA hopes an evolved version will one day tower at 400 feet (122 m) with a payload capacity of 130 metric tons. (For comparison, the space shuttle could carry 24.4 metric tons to orbit.)

The gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule is designed to carry up to four astronauts. NASA hopes to launch an unmanned Orion on an orbital test flight in 2014. The first test flight of the SLS isn't slated until late 2017, so Orion's maiden journey will likely take place aboard a Delta 4 Heavy rocket.

The space agency has said it hopes the SLS-Orion combo will carry its first crews by 2021 or so.

Robotic exploration has also been keeping NASA busy. In 2011, the space agency launched three unmanned missions to solar system bodies beyond Earth — the Juno spacecraft to Jupiter in August, the twin Grail probes to the moon in September and the Curiosity rover to Mars in November.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover is slated to touch down at the Red Planet's huge Gale Crater on the night of Aug. 5, when it will embark on a two-year mission to study whether the area is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life.

The future of NASA's robotic exploration program is somewhat up in the air, however. Obama's proposed 2013 federal budget, which was released in February, cuts the agency's planetary science funding by 20 percent, with much of that coming out of the Mars program.

As a result, NASA has had to scale back and fundamentally rethink its unmanned Mars exploration program. For example, it pulled out of the European-led ExoMars mission, which aims to launch a rover and orbiter to the Red Planet in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom . We're also on Facebook and Google+.