NASA making strides in their mission to moon, preparing for Artemis liftoff

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - NASA is making strides on its mission to the moon, a decade in the making. Now, the space administration says it is finally seeing the fruits of its labor.

Back in October, NASA completed the stacking of the rocket, meaning they put all the parts together.

The next steps include rolling out the rocket to Launchpad 39B on St. Patrick's Day and then a wet dress rehearsal targeted for next month.

"We are going to be really feeling the rocket, verifying everything works, and then attempting a scrub and then draining the rocket of all its propellants and really testing all the systems, our hardware, and our people," said Lili Villarreal, NASA’s exploration ground systems manager.

NASA’s exploration ground systems manager says their teams are working on installing the flight termination system on the rocket, making sure they can abort the flight if necessary.

Then the 322-foot-tall rocket will roll back into the vehicle assembly building for final checkout, ahead of the big day.

"I will be very emotional. This is one of the most rewarding jobs I have had at my career at NASA and the team that we work with has just been amazing, and I cannot believe they got us to this point, and we all cannot wait for this rocket to launch successfully," said Villarreal

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