Two rockets close to launch show off at Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Two colossi face each other, look at each other, challenge each other. They pose for Earth cameras, but they have a target off this planet. Two rockets were positioned at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, United States, for the pleasant view of space fans.

This is NASA's Artemis 1 lunar rocket and SpaceX's Falcon 9, which share the central scene. The SLS, which will carry out the Artemis 1 mission, stands on platform 39B, where it awaits another general countdown rehearsal before being launched, probably in June, on a pilotless test flight to the Moon with the Orion crew capsule.

About 8.7 kilometers to the south, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is positioned vertically on platform 39A, in position for tomorrow's launch on a fully privately manned commercial flight to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX's Dragon Endeavour spacecraft is mounted on top of the Falcon 9 to transport four astronauts to the International Space Station.

The flight will be the Ax-1, which was organized by Houston company Axiom Space, which will send three customers who paid for their seats and Axiom employee Michael López-Alegría to the ISS for an eight-day stay. López-Alegría, former NASA astronaut, will be in charge of the mission. The Ax-1 was scheduled to launch on April 3, but its takeoff was delayed to accommodate the “general wet test” of Artemis 1 on Pad 39B. During this crucial test, members of the Artemis 1 team practice the activities they will be doing before an actual launch, including fueling the SLS.

Decades ago, it was common to see space shuttles on Kennedy's two launch pads, but the last time a shuttle occupied both platforms at the same time was in May 2009, when the shuttle Endeavour stopped on platform 39B while the Atlantis shuttle was launched from pad 39A on a service to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The SLS and Falcon 9 appear to be roughly the same size in some of the new images, but that's a perspective trick; the SLS rises 98 meters above the ground, while the Falcon 9 is “only” 70 meters high. Kennedy's launch pads were originally built in the 1960s for NASA's Saturn 5 lunar rocket and later modified for the space shuttle program.

Platform 39A, the starting point of the first moon landing mission and the first flight of the space shuttle, was leased to SpaceX in 2014. The commercial space company began launching Falcon 9 rockets from the historic launch complex in 2017. It is now the only SpaceX launch pad for commercial manned missions and for flights of the company's powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, using three Falcon 9 rocket cores bolted together.

Platform 39B is still operated by NASA, which upgraded the facilities for the Space Launch System. The SLS is the giant rocket that NASA intends to use for astronaut missions to the Moon. The Artemis 1 test flight is a precursor to future crew launches on the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, starting with the Artemis 2 mission, scheduled to go around the Moon no earlier than 2024.

Future missions will connect with a commercial human-qualified lander near the Moon to bring astronauts to the lunar surface. SpaceX has a contract to build the first one using a derivative of its superheavy-lift reusable Starship rocket, under development with a higher lifting capacity than the Space Launch System.

This is how the SLS and Falcon 9 compare.

• Space launch system/Orion:

· 322 feet (98 meters) high

· 8.8 million pounds of take-off thrust

· 95 metric tons of payload to low-Earth orbit

· Qualified by humans

· All major structural elements are expendable.

· Up to $4.1 billion per flight (as estimated by NASA Inspector General)

• Hawk 9/Dragon Crew:

· 215 feet (65 meters) high

· 1.7 million pounds of take-off thrust

· 22.8 metric tons to low Earth orbit (with disposable reinforcement)

· Qualified by humans

· Reusable First Stage and Crew Dragon; Disposable Second Stage and Trunk

· Up to $220 million per flight (as estimated by NASA Inspector General)

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