After completing its journeying from NASA ’s Michoud Assembly Facility aboard the Pegasus barge , team with Exploration Ground Systems tape drive the authority ’s powerful SLS ( Space Launch System ) heart stagecoach to NASA ’s Kennedy Space Center ’s Vehicle Assembly Building on July 23.NASA / Isaac Watson
NASA ’s larger-than-life Space Launch System projectile , standing 322 feet tall when fully stack , has recently been on an similarly epic journey — go from New Orleans to Florida via barge . The rocketbegan its journeymore than two week ago , and having plow more than 900 miles has now arrived good at the Kennedy Space Center .
The core stage was manufactured and assembled at the Michoud Assembly Facility , and had to jaunt to Kennedy to be quick for integrating and testing ahead of the Artemis II test flying . It will be used to carry crew members on a 10 - Clarence Day journeying around the moon and back , including NASA astronauts Victor Glover , Christina Koch , and Reid Wiseman plus Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen .
After completing its journey from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility aboard the Pegasus barge, teams with Exploration Ground Systems transport the agency’s powerful SLS (Space Launch System) core stage to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building on July 23.NASA/Isaac Watson
“ With Artemis , we ’ve arrange our sights on doing something self-aggrandising and unbelievably complex that will inspire a new generation , advance our scientific endeavors , and move U.S. competitiveness forward , ” said Catherine Koerner , associate decision maker for NASA ’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate , when the core stage set off on its journey . “ The sodium lauryl sulfate rocket is a key component of our drive to develop a long - full term presence at the Moon . ”
Before the launching , however , there ’s still a lot of work to be done to get the core stage ready for flight . It is now in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy , where it will be set into the mobile launcher — the weapons platform that hooks it up to the solid ground systems — and integrated with the Orion spacecraft that will house the crew . In summation , the nitty-gritty microscope stage involve to have its twin square rocket boosters and found fomite stage adapter bring , and then the entire assembly will need thoroughgoing testing to insure it ’s quick to wing .
Artemis II is presently schedule for September next class , following on from the Artemis I mission in November 2022 that see an uncrewed version of the SLS and Orion capsule travel around the moon and back to Earth . That delegation was asuccess;however , some components were damaged during the launch , and the launch of the first crewed commission waspushed backto accommodate more time for development and integration .
The tenacious - term plan is to return world to the surface of the Sun Myung Moon for the first clip in more than 50 long time in the Artemis III mission , tentatively scheduled for September 2026 .
