NASA’s SLS Artemis moon rocket is among largest in world. How big is it?

• NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis 2 mission stands at 322 feet tall.
• The SLS is NASA's most powerful rocket, generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust.
• While massive, the SLS is shorter than SpaceX's approximately 400-foot Starship megarocket.
• The Artemis 2 mission will be the first crewed flight of the SLS, sending four astronauts on a trip around the moon.

If you're going to send a crew of astronauts about 250,000 miles away, you're gonna need a big rocket to get them off the ground and on their way.

And that's exactly what NASA has standing at the launch pad in Florida for the space agency's first human moon mission in more than 50 years.

At 322 feet tall, NASA's Space Launch System rocket is almost as tall as an American football field is long from endzone to endzone. Put another way, the giant rocket, which is set to launch the Artemis 2 moon-circling mission in a matter of days, even towers over the 305-foot-tall Statue of Liberty near New York City.

So, yeah, it's big.

But as for the world's largest rocket? That designation still belongs to Starship, the approximately 400-foot megarocket that billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX has been developing with a series of test flights in South Texas.

Ahead of the Artemis 2 launch from the Kennedy Space Center, here's a look at how the rocket compares in size to not only Starship, but its Saturn V predecessor and other contemporaries.

What is NASA's Space Launch System rocket?

The Space Launch System (SLS) is the gigantic rocket NASA developed specifically for its Artemis lunar program, which the agency's ambitious campaign to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time since 1972.

Built by Boeing and Northrop Grumman, the SLS rocket may not have an exciting name, but it more than makes up for it in sheer terms of power and capability.

Topped with an Orion crew capsule where astronauts will ride, the SLS will launch atop a staggering 8.8 million pounds of thrust – a measure of the amount of force used to push the vehicle off the ground. For space nerds, that's about 15% more power than the SLS rocket's Saturn V predecessor used for the Apollo missions, according to NASA.

The SLS rocket is classified as a super-heavy lift launch vehicle, which is what allowed it to carry 27 metric tons (59,000 pounds) to the moon during its debut launch. In the case of the Artemis missions, that makes the rocket the only one capable of sending NASA's Orion capsule occupied by up to four astronauts, along with "large cargo" directly to the moon, according to NASA.

How tall is the Artemis moon rocket?

The Space Launch System stands at 322 feet tall when fully stacked, making it one of NASA's largest rockets ever.

In fact, it dwarfs NASA's iconic space shuttles, which stood at 184 feet tall. The SLS rocket is composed of a 212-foot core stage propelled by four engines powered by a mix of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, as well as two 177-feet-tall solid rocket boosters mounted to the sides providing the bulk of the initial burst of thrust at liftoff.

In NASA's rocket arsenal, the SLS is only outdone in terms of height by the retired 363-foot-tall Saturn V. The three-stage heavy-lift launch vehicle was pivotal in the U.S. space agency's historic Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s that launched from the Kennedy Space Center.

Comparing SLS height to Starship, New Glenn, Saturn V

Despite its towering height, NASA's Space Launch System is not the tallest active rocket in the world. That honor belongs to SpaceX's Starship.

When fully stacked, the second iteration of Starship, known as Version 2, stood at 403 feet tall. And the next design of the spacecraft – composed of both an upper stage vehicle and the lower stage booster, known as Super Heavy – may be even bigger.

Still, the SLS towers over most other rockets that are active today in the United States.

That includes SpaceX's 230-foot Falcon 9, the world's most active rocket responsible for deploying the company's Starlink internet satellites and launching astronauts to orbit on missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX also has a more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket that stands at the same height.

The SLS rocket is also just slightly taller than the 320-foot-tall New Glenn, a two-stage heavy-lift launch vehicle manufactured by billionaire Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company Blue Origin for commercial, civil and military launches.

When did the SLS rocket make its debut launch?

NASA's Space Launch System rocket has only launched once, making its maiden flight Nov. 16, 2022, during the Artemis 1 mission to send the Orion capsule around the moon without a crew.

The mission made history, with the SLS rocket becoming the most powerful rocket NASA has ever launched.

When is the Artemis 2 rocket launch date?

NASA's Artemis 2 moon mission could get off the ground as early as April 1 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Ahead of the launch, the crew of Artemis 2 – NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen – entered quarantine at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and will soon fly to Florida.

Hitching a ride atop the SLS rocket, the Artemis 2 astronauts are due to pilot an Orion capsule on a 10-day trip around the moon. While no moon landing is in store for the mission, the crew will test systems and hardware for future expeditions to the surface while traveling up to 6,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon – the farthest humans have ever ventured in space.

A moon landing is now due to take place as early as 2028 during a mission known as Artemis 4. Prior to that mission, Artemis 3 astronauts aboard the Orion capsule are due to meet and dock in 2027 in Earth orbit with at least one of the commercial lunar landers being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]