In an exciting development at Cape Canaveral, NASA’s colossal new moon rocket made its way to the launch pad on Saturday, setting the stage for what promises to be a historic mission. This mission, which aims to have astronauts conduct their first lunar fly-around in over 50 years, could potentially commence as early as February.

As dawn broke, the towering 322-foot rocket began its slow journey from the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building. Traveling at a leisurely pace of 1 mph, the rocket’s four-mile trek to the launch pad was expected to extend until nightfall, capturing the anticipation and excitement of the moment.

The event drew a large crowd of space center employees and their families, who braved the early morning chill to witness this momentous occasion. Many had waited years for this day, and their enthusiasm was palpable as they gathered outside the historic building. Originally constructed in the 1960s to house the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era, the building now served as the backdrop for this new chapter in space exploration. NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, was present to lead the cheering crowd, accompanied by the four astronauts assigned to this pioneering mission.

The Space Launch System rocket, together with the Orion crew capsule perched atop, weighed in at an impressive 11 million pounds. This immense structure was transported on a massive carrier that had been revamped to handle the extra weight of the SLS, a legacy of its use during the Apollo and shuttle programs.

Weighing in at 11 million pounds (5 million kilograms), the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule on top made the move aboard a massive transporter that was used during the Apollo and shuttle eras. It was upgraded for the SLS rocket’s extra heft.

The first and only other SLS launch — which sent an empty Orion capsule into orbit around the moon — took place back in November 2022.

“This one feels a lot different, putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the moon,” NASA’s John Honeycutt said on the eve of the rocket’s rollout.

Heat shield damage and other capsule problems during the initial test flight required extensive analyses and tests, pushing back this first crew moonshot until now. The astronauts won’t orbit the moon or even land on it. That giant leap will take come on the third flight in the Artemis lineup a few years from now.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch — longtime NASA astronauts with spaceflight experience — will be joined on the 10-day mission by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot awaiting his first rocket ride.

They will be the first people to fly to the moon since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the triumphant lunar-landing program in 1972. Twelve astronauts strolled the lunar surface, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969.

NASA is waiting to conduct a fueling test of the SLS rocket on the pad in early February before confirming a launch date. Depending on how the demo goes, “that will ultimately lay out our path toward launch,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said on Friday.

The space agency has only five days to launch in the first half of February before bumping into March.

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