Space Exploration

Following 11 years in which the space agency has had no launch capability of its own, NASA will soon attempt to fly its huge Space Launch System (SLS) booster for the first time. A few minutes after liftoff, the Orion spacecraft will separate from the rocket and zip into orbit around the moon for more than a month. No astronauts will be on board this much delayed initial flight. But on later flights, some will.

NASA’s Artemis 1 successfully launched early Wednesday morning, the first step in mankind’s historic return to the Moon.

NASA described the launch of the Space Launch System (SLS), carrying the Orion spacecraft capsule, as the beginning of "a new chapter in human lunar exploration."

At approximately 1:47 am, the Space Launch System announced the SLS successfully took off from Launch Complex 39B in Florida, beginning a complex, weeks-long process. 

Fifty years after the final Apollo moon mission, NASA has embarked on a crucial first step toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface.

The agency launched its new megarocket and space capsule on a mission to the moon Wednesday in an uncrewed test flight known as Artemis I. The huge rocket blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:48 a.m. ET.

"[F]or the Artemis generation, this is for you," launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the agency's first female launch director, said before she gave the go-ahead for liftoff.

NASA's plan to return humans to the moon is one small step closer to reality with the launch of its most powerful rocket ever. During the dark and early hours of Wednesday morning -- following a painstaking road to launch -- the agency's mammoth, tangerine Space Launch System finally flared to life, lifting off from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center. 

And it was brilliant.

A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.

The galactic slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles (11.3 million kilometers) away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the space rock at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph). Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid’s orbit.

The NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft on Monday deliberately slammed into an asteroid millions of miles away in an innovative test for a possible killer rock that could one day be headed to Earth. 

NASA described the mission as an "impact success," saying the "vending machine-sized spacecraft" collided with the asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth. 

NASA's DART spacecraft successfully slammed into a distant asteroid at hypersonic speed on Monday in the world's first test of a planetary defense system, designed to prevent a potential doomsday meteorite collision with Earth.

Humanity's first attempt to alter the motion of an asteroid or any celestial body played out in a NASA webcast from the mission operations center outside Washington, D.C., 10 months after DART was launched.

NASA will push back its latest attempt at launching its new Moon rocket due to a tropical storm that could become a major hurricane, the agency said in a statement on Saturday.

The big picture: The delay comes as Tropical Storm Ian is expected to become a hurricane by Monday and hit the Florida Gulf Coast. The launch was originally scheduled for Tuesday.

It will be the third delay after hydrogen fuel leaks and other technical issues caused the first two scrubs.

Before the first launch attempt of the Artemis I mission last Monday, Wayne Hale, a former program manager of NASA’s space shuttle program, shared a note of caution on Twitter that the day could end up disappointing:

Bill Harwood, a longtime space reporter at CBS News, responded, “I think you’re being optimistic!”

The launch of the NASA Artemis I rocket was scrubbed for a second time on Saturday after another fuel leak. 

Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson finally halted the countdown at 11:17 a.m. EDT after three to four hours of effort.

The team then started to work to de-tank the rocket. 

Launch controllers were unable to troubleshoot a hydrogen leak – which was detected at 7:15 a.m. EDT – that reoccurred twice in a cavity between the ground and flight side plates of a quick disconnect.