NASA's Mars rocket gets closer to the real world

NASA has finalized its $2.8 billion deal with Boeing to build the biggest rocket ever.

Boeing is contracted to develop the 200-foot-tall first stage and avionics systems of the gigantic Space Launch System, or SLS. NASA and Boeing also reached a crticial milestone last week by completing the design review of the SLS core stage — a first for a major NASA launch vehicle in five decades.

The SLS is the vehicle the country is counting on to finally get U.S. astronauts back into space from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011. The crew will travel inside the new Orion capsule, also in development.

NASA plans at least two versions of the SLS. The first, or smaller version will be 321 feet tall, 5.5 million pounds and able to lift 154,000 pounds into low-Earth orbit. Its maiden flight is expected in 2017, with an uncrewed Orion capsule.

Then a bigger, more advanced SLS will be built, at 384 feet, 6.5 million pounds and able to lift 286,000 pounds. That version is expected to lift off in 2021, carrying U.S. astronauts.

Together, the SLS and Orion are intended to get Americans into deep space to study and retrieve an asteroid.

Then, if all goes well, to Mars in the 2030s.

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