Accordingly, after 32 years of false starts and failed programs, a successful launch of the Space Launch System will at last reopen old frontiers of human spaceflight. NASA will again have the hardware to transport humankind to other worlds. No other American rocket can send astronauts to the moon in a single launch.

Does NASA still launch space shuttles?

But that's not the case anymore. On May 30, 2020, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, marking the first crewed spaceflight launched from American soil since NASA retired the Space Shuttle.

When was the last time NASA launched a rocket?

It's been 10 years since NASA's space shuttle Atlantis ended an era. NASA's final space shuttle mission, which launched 10 years ago this week, almost didn't happen. The mission on space shuttle Atlantis, called STS-135, launched on July 8, 2011.