Science News Roundup: NASA poised for historic Artemis I lunar launch from Florida; Boeing targets early 2023 for first Starliner mission carrying astronauts and more

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

NASA poised for historic Artemis I lunar launch from Florida

A half century after the end of NASA’s Apollo era, the U.S. space agency’s long-anticipated bid to return astronauts to the moon’s surface remains at least three years away, with much of the necessary hardware still on the drawing board. But NASA aims to take a giant leap in its renewed lunar ambitions with the debut launch set for next Monday in Florida of its next-generation megarocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion crew capsule it is designed to carry.

Rock-hunting NASA rover reveals Martian crater’s surprising geology

Core samples drilled by NASA’s Perseverance rover on the Martian surface are revealing the geology of a gaping crater scientists suspect may have harbored microbial life billions of years ago, including surprises about the nature of the rock present there. The samples, obtained by the car-sized, six-wheeled robotic rover and stored for future transport to Earth for further study, showed that rock from four sites inside Jezero crater is igneous – formed by the cooling of molten material. The rocks also bore evidence of alteration through exposure to water, another sign that cold and arid Mars long ago was warm and wet.

Boeing targets early 2023 for first Starliner mission carrying astronauts

Boeing Co is targeting February 2023 to fly its first Starliner mission with astronauts aboard to the International Space Station, Boeing and NASA officials said on Thursday, as the aerospace company nears the final leg of a costly and much-delayed development timeline. Starliner’s first crewed flight would come nearly a year after the spacecraft flew to the space station and back without any humans in March, completing a critical demonstration mission for NASA on its second try after software failures cut short a similar test flight in 2019.

(With inputs from agencies.)