New NASA rocket moved to launchpad two weeks ahead of trip to Moon

NASA's giant new SLS rocket arrived at its launchpad Wednesday in Cape Canaveral ahead of a planned flight to the Moon in less than two weeks.

It will be the maiden voyage of the Artemis program - America's quest to return humans to the Moon for the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

The Artemis 1 mission, an uncrewed test flight, will feature the first blastoff of the Space Launch System rocket, which will be the most powerful in the world.

It will propel the Orion crew capsule into orbit around the Moon, and the spacecraft will remain in space for 42 days before returning to Earth.

Starting in 2024, astronauts will travel aboard Orion for the same trip, and the following year, at the earliest, Americans will once again set foot on the Moon.

The SLS rocket, in development for more than a decade, is 98 meters (322 feet) tall.

On Wednesday it stood at historic launch complex 39B, after a 10-hour overnight crawl from the assembly building.

"To all of us that gaze up at the Moon, dreaming of the day humankind returns to the lunar surface, folks, we're here. We are going back," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said earlier this month.

The Orion capsule will fly to the Moon and 64,000 kilometres (40,000 miles) beyond it -- further than any previous crewed spacecraft.

On the way back through Earth's atmosphere, travelling at 40,000 km per hour (25,000 mph), Orion's thermal shield will have to withstand a temperature that is half that of the surface of the sun.

Liftoff for the Artemis 1 mission is scheduled for August 29 at 8.33am (1233 GMT). If it has to be postponed due to bad weather, the backup dates are September 2 and 5.

The hope is to use the Moon as a staging ground to develop technologies for sending humans to Mars.