A short calming timelapse shows NASA’s mega-Moon rocket with Orion and the European Service Module inside on its launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.

At 100 m tall, the SLS rocket is roughly the height of the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) in London, UK, or 16 giraffes stacked on top of each other. If you laid the rocket on the ground, it would take over a minute to walk from the engines to the tip of the launch abort system.

At the top of the rocket is the Orion spacecraft including its European Service Module that will be launched to the Moon and back. This mission called Artemis I will not carry a crew but will instead be controlled from the ground.

ESA has designed and is overseeing the development of Orion’s service module, the part of the spacecraft that supplies air, electricity and propulsion. Much like a train engine pulls passenger carriages and supplies power, the European Service Module will take the Orion capsule to its destination and back.

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