NASA will roll a 322-foot-tall rocket out to the launchpad on Saturday, a key step as the agency prepares for a long-awaited mission to send four astronauts around the moon.The Space Launch System rocket, topped with the Orion capsule, which will carry the astronauts, is set to make the slow, 4-mile journey from NASA’s cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building — where the rocket’s various components were put together — to the launchpad at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, beginning at 7 a.m. ET. NASA will stream the event, known as “rollout,” live on its YouTube channel.The event will kick off a series of tests and dress rehearsals that, if successful, will take the agency into final preparations for its first crewed flight to the moon in more than 50 years. The mission, known as Artemis II, could lift off sometime between Feb. 6 and 11, though launch windows are also available in March and April.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe rollout is a key step for mission managers to assess the health and safety of the booster before NASA leaders finally set an official launch date.“These are the kind of days we live for,” John Honeycutt, the Artemis II mission management team chair, said Friday in a news briefing.The Artemis II mission plan calls for four crew members — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — to spend 10 days in space, journeying first around Earth then entering orbit around the moon.The rollout on Saturday could last up to 12 hours. An enormous, moving platform known as a crawler-transporter will carry the 11 million-pound Artemis II rocket to NASA’s historic Launch Pad 39B, which was also used during the Apollo and space shuttle programs.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe stacked transporter will inch along at …
