Nasa gets rocket ready for Artemis II launch

It's an exciting moment for space fans, with Nasa making final preparations for its up-coming 10-day crewed test flight around the Moon.

As part of the Artemis 2 mission, the US space agency is getting ready to roll out its giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft to the launch pad over the next few days.

If all goes to plan, Nasa will be starting the move on Saturday 17 January.

The four mile journey will take a whopping 12 hours, with the transporting vehicles having to move at a crawling pace because of the size of the rockets.

Lori Glaze, one of Nasa's leading team members working on Artemis, says that "crew safety will remain our top priority at every turn, as we near humanity's return to the Moon."

With the SLS and the Orion weighing over 2.6 million kilograms, and standing taller than the famous Statue of Liberty, it'll need something very strong and steady to carry it.

Enter the Crawler-Transporter 2, which is Nasa's vehicle used to carry rockets to launch.

It can carry over 8 million kilograms, which is the weight of more than 20 fully loaded aeroplanes - so it's up to the job.

Because of this, it can only travel at a top speed of one mile per hour!

Once the rocket is in place, there's lots of mission tests and training for Nasa to complete before launch.

They'll do a 'wet dress rehearsal', where the team will practice loading and removing the rocket fuel and do a test launch countdown.

Depending on when the rocket is ready to go, there's a list of different dates in which the rocket could launch, with the earliest date being 6 February.