Science News Roundup: NASA's Artemis moon rocket's main fuel tanks filled for debut launch; Britain issues first spaceport licence ahead of maiden satellite launch and more

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. NASA's Artemis moon rocket's main fuel tanks filled for debut launch Ground teams at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday filled the main fuel tanks of NASA's towering, next-generation moon rocket for its debut launch, a flight to kick off the U.S. space agency's Artemis program 50 years after the last Apollo lunar mission.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

NASA's Artemis moon rocket's main fuel tanks filled for debut launch

Ground teams at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday filled the main fuel tanks of NASA's towering, next-generation moon rocket for its debut launch, a flight to kick off the U.S. space agency's Artemis program 50 years after the last Apollo lunar mission. The 32-story Space Launch System (SLS) rocket was due to blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 1:04 a.m. EST (0604 GMT) on Wednesday to send its Orion capsule on a 25-day test flight around the moon and back without astronauts aboard.

Britain issues first spaceport licence ahead of maiden satellite launch

Britain issued its first spaceport licence on Wednesday, paving the way for the country's maiden satellite launch later this year as it looks to become Europe's leading space industry player. The licence was issued to Spaceport Cornwall.

NASA's Artemis rocketship on course for moon after epic launch

NASA's next-generation rocketship was on course Wednesday for a crewless voyage around the moon and back, launched from Florida on its debut flight half a century after the final lunar mission of the Apollo era. The much-delayed launch kicked off Apollo's successor program, Artemis, aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface this decade and establishing a sustainable base there as a stepping stone to future human exploration of Mars.

Arianespace to ramp up to full Ariane 6 rocket launch rate in 2026 - CEO

Europe's Arianespace expects to launch its first Ariane 6 rocket by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, but it will take until 2026 to ramp up to the full rate of nine to 11 per year, the company's chief executive said on Wednesday. Arianespace, a rival to Elon Musk's SpaceX that is majority-owned by a joint venture of and Safran, has secured 29 launches for the delayed Ariane 6 programme, 18 of them for an Amazon.com project to beam broadband internet.

(With inputs from agencies.)