NASA’s Space Launch System
It may be prohibitively expensive, long overdue, and already archaic, but we’re still super stoked about the upcoming launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). The estimated cost of each SLS launch has been pegged at $4.1 billion, the rocket was supposed to debut in 2016, and, unlike SpaceX’s upcoming Starship, it’s not reusable. Yet, there’s lots to like about the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) monster that NASA likes to call the “Mega Moon rocket.”
The rocket will assume various configurations depending on the mission, but for Artemis 1, the inaugural launch scheduled for late August, SLS Block 1 will lift 27 metric tons to trans-lunar injection (note: hereafter all references to tons will be in metric tons). The Block 2 version will be capable of lifting a whopping 130 metric tons to low Earth orbit (LEO). And if you think SLS looks a bit like the Space Shuttle, you’re not wrong, as the system borrows heavily from the now-retired program. The heavy-lift rocket will be integral to the Artemis program, which seeks to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade and possibly Mars in the late 2030s.
