Kamal Ghorui
If you laid Nasa’s Artemis II moon rocket on its side, it would stretch nearly the length of a football field. That’s because the Space Launch System (SLS) stands 322 feet tall — just a few yards shy of the 360-foot length of a standard gridiron, making it one of the tallest rockets ever built.The Artemis II rocket is bigger than many landmarks on Earth. If placed end-to-end with the International Space Station, which spans about 357 feet including solar arrays, the two would be nearly the same length as a football field including both end zones.Built to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, the Artemis II rocket is designed to send four crew members on a 10-day journey around the moon and back. The mission will include three Nasa astronauts and one from Canada and will test the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems ahead of a future lunar landing.The massive rocket was slowly rolled from Nasa’s Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center earlier this year, a journey that took nearly 12 hours. Moving at about 1 mile per hour atop a crawler transporter, the SLS towered over the historic launch complex.Nasa had hoped Artemis II could launch as early as February, marking the first time humans would travel beyond low-Earth orbit since the Apollo missions more than 50 years ago. The agency has since announced the launch will not be attempted until at least March.The delay followed a failed countdown rehearsal at the launch pad. The test did not include astronauts, and the rocket’s engines were not scheduled to ignite. During fueling, hydrogen leaks were detected — an issue that also delayed the uncrewed Artemis I mission before it successfully orbited the moon in 2022.Despite efforts to continue the rehearsal, including fully fueling the rocket and entering the final minutes of the countdown, the hydrogen leak returned. The test was ultimately scrubbed shortly after midnight with about five minutes remaining.Nasa has described Artemis II as a crucial step toward returning humans to lunar orbit and paving the way for a future mission that will land astronauts on the moon.
