When NASA’s new moon rocket lifts off as soon as April 1, its immense core stage will mix 537,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen with 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and ignite the propellant in four, eight-foot-wide engines, producing some 1.7 million pounds of thrust. Shortly after these main engines fire, two solid rocket boosters, one on each side, will light their gunpowder-like propellant to add 3.3 million pounds of thrust each.
This immense force will lift the 322-foot-tall rocket, named the Space Launch System (SLS), on the first leg of Artemis II, a more than 600,000-mile journey to the moon and back.
“It’s like a whole building
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