SLS and Orion: The Hardware Taking Us Back

Half a century after the Saturn V, America built a Moon rocket again. Here's how the Space Launch System and Orion stack up against the giants they descend from.

THE ROCKET

The Space Launch System stands 322 feet tall in its initial configuration — shorter than the Saturn V, but with more thrust at liftoff: 8.8 million pounds, courtesy of four RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters inherited and evolved from the Shuttle program.

It is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever launched.

THE SPACECRAFT

Orion is built for the deep-space environment Apollo pioneered — but for four astronauts instead of three, with modern computing, a European-built service module, and the largest heat shield ever flown.

It is designed to keep crews alive for weeks beyond low Earth orbit, not days.

STANDING ON SATURN'S SHOULDERS

SLS burns Shuttle-heritage engines, flies from the same Launch Complex 39B once built for Saturn rockets, and rolls out on a crawler-transporter older than most of its engineers.

The new Moon program is stitched directly into the hardware and ground of the old one — deliberately.

THE TOOLS HAVE CHANGED. THE STANDARD THEY'RE MEASURED AGAINST HASN'T.