NASA's Artemis 1 mission, scheduled to take off on Monday, is a 42-day voyage beyond the far side of the Moon and back.

The meticulously choreographed uncrewed flight should yield spectacular images as well as valuable scientific data.

Blastoff

The giant Space Launch System rocket will make its maiden flight from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Its four RS-25 engines, with two white boosters on either side, will produce 8.8 million pounds (39 meganewtons) of thrust—15 percent more than the Apollo program's Saturn V rocket.

After two minutes, the thrusters will fall back into the Atlantic Ocean.

After eight minutes, the core stage, orange in color, will fall away in turn, leaving the Orion crew capsule attached to the interim cryogenic propulsion stage.

Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, the Artemis program is poised to take up the baton of lunar exploration with a test launch on Monday of NASA's most powerful rocket ever.

The goal is to return humans to the Moon for the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972—and eventually to Mars.

The 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is scheduled to blast off at 8:33 am (1233 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

The mission, more than a decade in the planning, may be uncrewed, but is highly symbolic for NASA, which has been under pressure from China and private rivals such as SpaceX.

Hotels around Cape Canaveral are booked solid with between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators expected to attend the launch.

The massive orange-and-white rocket has been sitting on KSC's Launch Complex 39B for a week.

With a week to go before the Artemis I rocket has its first shot at the moon, NASA managers said the hardware is good to go.

The massive Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft atop the mobile launcher rolled out to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B last week ahead of the first launch window that opens at 8:33 a.m. next Monday.

"We are go for launch," said NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana after teams completed the flight readiness review Monday. "This day has been a long time coming. ... I want to put this in perspective. This is a test flight. It's not without risk. We have analyzed the risk as best we can and we have mitigated as best we can."

The rocket launch expected to bring between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators to the Space Coast will if successful become the most powerful rocket to ever lift off from Earth. The core stage combined with two solid rocket boosters produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust besting the Saturn V rockets from the Apollo missions to the moon.