NASA’s subsequent moon rocket is coming collectively, piece by piece.
The core stage of NASA’s subsequent House Launch System (SLS) rocket not too long ago accomplished integration with the automobile’s facet boosters contained in the company’s Automobile Meeting Constructing in Florida. SLS will launch NASA’s Artemis 2 mission to fly 4 astronauts aboard an Orion spacecraft across the moon and again someday subsequent 12 months.
“Technicians joined the core stage March 23 with the stacked strong rocket boosters for the mission at NASA’s Kennedy House Heart (KSC),” NASA officers wrote in a statement Monday (March 24). SLS’s strong rocket boosters are answerable for lofting the 322-foot (98-meter), absolutely stacked automobile by means of the primary stage of launch. Every booster stands 177 toes (54 meters) tall, and collectively they supply greater than three quarters of SLS’s whole thrust at liftoff.
Utilizing one of many VAB’s large overhead cranes, technicians transferred the 212-foot (65-meter) SLS core stage from its latest dwelling in Excessive Bay 2, to the constructing’s “switch aisle” earlier this month. On Sunday (March 23), the stage was reoriented and moved to the power’s Excessive Bay 3, the place it has now joined with its strong rocket boosters atop the cellular launcher.
After transferring the @NASA_SLS core stage north within the Automobile Meeting Constructing switch aisle, groups started lifting it with two of the power’s overhead cranes, reorienting it right into a vertical place. That is referred to as a “breakover.” pic.twitter.com/phNH0nWcIUMarch 25, 2025
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Different elements of the Artemis 2 SLS have additionally come collectively in latest weeks as properly, together with the solar panels and spacecraft adapter jettison fairings on the mission’s Orion capsule and European-built service module. Within the coming months, the capsule and module will be a part of the complete SLS stack within the VAB, sitting atop the rocket’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage.
Artemis 2 is the second mission of NASA’s Artemis Program, meant to determine a long-term human presence on the moon. Artemis 1 launched an uncrewed Orion into lunar orbit and again in Nov. 2022. Artemis 2 would be the first crewed mission of this system, and can launch the primary astronauts to circle the moon because the last Apollo flight in 1972.
Aboard Orion for the lunar loop-around might be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman as Artemis 2 commander, Victor Glover as mission pilot and Christina Koch as mission specialist. Canadian House Company (CSA) astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen may even be a part of the crew. NASA has not but introduced the crew for Artemis 3, however has lengthy billed it because the mission to ship the primary girl and first individual of coloration to the lunar floor — astronauts Koch and Glover occur to fall into these classes, respectively. Nevertheless, the language “first girl” and “first individual of coloration” has not too long ago been deleted from the company’s Artemis web sites amid a push from the Trump administration to finish Range, Fairness, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) efforts.
NASA is at the moment focusing on Spring 2026 for the launch of Artemis 2, with Artemis 3 scheduled to observe in 2027. The missions had been slated to launch in 2025 and 2026, however surprising harm to Orion’s warmth defend throughout Artemis 1 prompted NASA to delay each by greater than a 12 months.
