NASA pushes first launch of its Mars rocket to 2019

Engadget ------- The Space Launch System (SLS), the heavy rocket NASA plans to send humans to Mars with, won't get its first launch until 2019. Tech problems have delayed the project years later than Congress' originally estimated it would debut, but space agency officials have confirmed that the big lifter's initial flight will be pushed back again from late 2018 to sometime in 2019. A NASA official confirmed the delay in a letter appended to a Government Accountability Office report noted that the rocket most likely wouldn't make its November 2018 first launch deadline. That flight will test the SLS and Orion capsule attached to it, which the agency plans to use to house humans on missions to the Moon and Mars. To learn more click on the picture below to read the article.