Following the recent successful test flight of NASA’s Artemis II mission around the Moon, NASA rolled out the core stage, or the largest section, of the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that will launch the crewed Artemis III mission in 2027. The stage departed from the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on Monday for shipment to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking key progress on the path to the agency’s first crewed lunar landing mission to the Moon under the Artemis program in two years.
Using highly specialized transporters, engineers maneuvered the top four-fifths of the SLS core stage, the section containing the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt, from inside NASA Michoud to the agency’s Pegasus barge for delivery to NASA Kennedy. After arrival, teams will complete the stage outfitting and vertical integration, and the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems Program will stack the rocket’s components in preparation for launch.
“Seeing this SLS rocket hardware roll out is a powerful reminder of our progress toward returning humans to the lunar surface,” said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This is the backbone of Artemis III. As it heads to Florida for final integration, we are one step closer to testing the critical capabilities needed to land Americans on the Moon, and ultimately, paving the way for our first crewed missions to Mars.”
At 212 feet tall, the completed core stage will consist of the top four fifths of the rocket combined with its engine section. The top four-fifths include the two propellant tanks that collectively hold more than 733,000 gallons of super-chilled liquid propellant to fuel four RS-25 engines. During launch and flight, the fully integrated stage will operate for more than eight minutes, producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust to propel astronauts inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft into orbit.
Building, assembling, and transporting the core stage is a collaborative process for two of NASA’s prime contractors, Boeing and L3Harris Technologies. Boeing is responsible for the overall design and assembly of the core stage, and L3Harris manufactures the rocket’s RS-25 engines. Recent announcements by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman enabled the agency to standardize the SLS configuration, streamline operations, and optimize production to accelerate the Artemis program.
Next year’s Artemis III mission will launch astronauts to Earth’s orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft on top of SLS to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and commercial spacecraft needed to land Artemis IV astronauts on the Moon in 2028. NASA’s SLS is the only rocket capable of sending Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.
As part of the Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, establish an enduring human presence on the lunar surface, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
Learn more about NASA’s Artemis program:
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James Gannon
Headquarters, Washington
202-664-7828
james.h.gannon@nasa.gov
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-631-9126
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov