CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA’s New Moon rocket arrived at the launch site Wednesday ahead of its first flight in less than two weeks.
The 98-meter-long rocket emerged from its mammoth hangar late Tuesday night, drawing crowds of Kennedy Space Center workers, many of whom weren’t even born when NASA sent astronauts to the moon half a century ago.  It took nearly 10 hours for the rocket to make the four-mile trip to the pad, pulling up at sunrise.
NASA is targeting an August 29 liftoff for the lunar test flight.  No one will be inside the crew capsule atop the rocket, just three mannequins swarming with sensors to measure radiation and vibrations.
The capsule will fly around the moon in a distant orbit for a few weeks, before returning for a dive in the Pacific.  The entire flight should take six weeks.
The flight is the first lunar image in NASA’s Artemis program.  The space agency is aiming for a manned lunar orbit within two years and a manned lunar landing as early as 2025. That’s much later than NASA expected when it established the program more than a decade ago , as the space shuttle fleet withdrew.  Years of delays have added billions of dollars to the cost.
“Now, for the first time since 1972, we’re going to launch a rocket that’s designed for deep space,” NASA rocket program manager John Honeycutt said recently.
NASA’s new SLS moon rocket, short for Space Launch System, is 41 feet (12 meters) smaller than the Saturn V rockets used during Apollo half a century ago.  But it is more powerful, using a base stage and two belt amplifiers, similar to those used for space shuttles.
“When you look at the rocket, it looks almost retro.  It looks like we’re looking back toward Saturn V,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told reporters earlier this month.  “But it’s a completely different, new, highly sophisticated, more sophisticated rocket and spacecraft.”
Twenty-four astronauts flew to the moon during Apollo, with 12 of them landing on it from 1969 to 1972. The space agency wants a more diverse team and a more sustained effort under Artemis, named after mythological twin sister of Apollo.
“I want to emphasize that this is a test flight,” Nelson said.  “It is only the beginning.”
This was the missile’s third trip to the pad.  A countdown test in April was marred by fuel leaks and other equipment problems, forcing NASA to return the rocket to the hangar for repairs.  The dress rehearsal was repeated on the pad in June, with improved results.