NASA rolls out Artemis 3 SLS rocket’s huge core stage to gear up for 2027 launch (photo)
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NASA moved the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket that will launch the Artemis 3 mission in 2027 from the Michoud Assembly Facility to the Pegasus barge in New Orleans on April 20, 2026. | Credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker
A week and a half after the epic Artemis 2 mission landed, the biggest piece of NASA’s next moon rocket is on the move.
Monday April 20, NASA deployed the main stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will launch Artemis 3the next mission in the agency Artemis Program of the exploration of the Moon.
Huge rocket body emerged from NASA Michoud assembly center in New Orleans, then was loaded onto the agency’s Pegasus barge for shipment to the launch site — Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Space Coast.
This milestone is an important step towards the launch of Artemis 3, scheduled for mid-2027. Crewed mission will test rendezvous and docking operations in Earth orbit between NASA satellites Orion capsule and one or two private lunar landers that the agency has contracted for the Artemis program — that of SpaceX Spacecraft and Blue Origin Blue Moon.
If all goes well with this mission, humans will land near the Moon’s south pole on Artemis 4, currently scheduled for liftoff in late 2028. (It is not yet clear which lander will fly on this mission.)
“Seeing the deployment of SLS rocket hardware is a powerful reminder of our progress toward returning humans to the lunar surface,” Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. statement Monday.
“It’s the backbone of Artemis 3,” she added. “As it heads to Florida for final integration, we are poised to test the critical capabilities needed to land Americans on the moonand ultimately, paving the way for our first crewed missions to Mars. »
The final integrated center stage of Artemis 3 SLS will be 212 feet (64.6 meters) tall. The part released from Michoud on Monday only represented 80% of this height, because it was missing a large part: the engine section.
The deployment took place just ten days after the successful conclusion of Artemis 2which sent four astronauts on a historic flight around the Moon.
Artemis 2 was the first crewed lunar mission since 1972 and the first human spaceflight for SLS and Orion. It is also broke humanity’s all-time distance recordsending people further from Earth than they had ever been before – 252,760 miles (406,778 kilometers).
