Alex McColgan

The shuttle's primary propulsion comes from a single AJ-10 engine, while its secondary propulsion uses eight R-4D-11 engines as thrusters.

In total, the Artemis I mission will last 25 days, travelling beyond the Moon and back, while spending six of those days in a distant retrograde orbit, meaning it will orbit the Moon opposite to the direction that the Moon orbits Earth.

In addition to testing NASA's latest equipment, Artemis 1 will have a secondary payload of 10 CubeSats, which contain small satellites that will conduct some nifty independent testing.

These include an orbiter designed to search for lunar ice, and a solar-powered spacecraft capable of encountering near-Earth asteroids.

Orion will be stacked on the Space Launch System, a towering rocket standing 111 metres

At blastoff, it will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust, making it the most powerful rocket ever built.

To create enough force to send this heavy rocket past Earth's gravitational pull, it will get power in several stages.

At blastoff, the core stage and the two solid rocket boosters will fire up.

Within minutes, the core stage, which houses four RS-25 engines, will burn through nearly 3 million litres of liquid propellant, while each booster will also burn through 900,000 kilograms of solid fuel.

This does sound like a lot, but I don't think you can appreciate this in real terms without seeing it in action.

So, purely for your visual enjoyment, here is a close-up of the engines being tested.

absolutely remarkable power.

Once the core and boosters run out, the rocket will drop them, shedding excess weight.

At this point, the Space Launch System will have reached Earth's low orbit, but the shuttle will still need additional power in order to escape Earth's gravity.

To do this, the SLS will perform a big move, or Translunar Injection.

The upper part of the rocket, called the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, will then fire up and drop away, accelerating the Orion shuttle to nearly 40,000 km per hour, fast enough to send it on a trajectory to the Moon.

After the ICPS separates from Orion, it will drop its payload of 10 small satellites to do their own information-gathering missions, while Orion will cruise to lunar space.

There, Orion will fire up its maneuvering engines.

These will send the shuttle around the dark side of the moon before its boosters can send it on a trajectory back to Earth.

At this point, Orion will separate from its service module and re-enter Earth's atmosphere before splashing down with the help of parachutes.