Nasa’s Artemis Moon rocket lifts off Earth
The American space agency Nasa has launched its most powerful ever rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The 100m-tall Artemis vehicle climbed skyward in a stupendous mix of light and sound.
Its objective was to hurl an astronaut capsule in the direction of the Moon.
This spacecraft, known as Orion, is uncrewed for this particular flight, but if everything works as it should, people will climb aboard for future missions that go to the lunar surface.
But such issues were overcome on this occasion, and the Space Launch System, as the rocket is often called, was given the “go” to begin its ascent from the Kennedy Space Center at 01:47 local time (06:47 GMT).
The rocket had a number of important maneuvers to perform high above the planet to get the Orion capsule on the right path to the Moon.
The ship will now rely on its European propulsion module to shepherd it safely on the rest of the mission.
“And there’ll be some critical maneuvers from our service module, too, as we fine-tune the direction of flight of Orion,” Dr David Parker, the European Space Agency’s director of human spaceflight said.
“One of the really exciting moments will come when we do the orbit insertion into this very interesting path around the Moon, going far beyond the Moon for the first time.”
December will see Nasa celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17, the very last time humans walked on the Moon.
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