NASA's next-generation rocket ship was on course Wednesday for a crewless voyage around the moon and back, launched from Florida on its debut flight half a century after the final lunar mission of the Apollo era.
The much-delayed launch kicked off Apollo's successor program, Artemis, aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface this decade and establishing a sustainable base there as a stepping stone to future human exploration of Mars.
The 32-story-tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in the early hours, piercing the blackness over Cape Canaveral with a reddish-orange tail of fire.
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