NASA’s Rocket On Roll: Core Stage Arrives at Vehicle Assembly Building

After completing its journey from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans aboard the Pegasus barge, teams with Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) transport the agency's powerful SLS (Space Launch System) core stage to NASA's Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson

NASA's SLS (Space Launch System) rocket core stage for the Artemis II mission is inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Tugboats and towing vessels moved the barge and core stage 900-miles to the Florida spaceport from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where it was manufactured and assembled.

Team members with NASA's Exploration Ground Systems Program safely transferred the 212-foot-tall core stage from the agency's Pegasus barge, which arrived at NASA Kennedy's Complex 39 turn basin wharf on July 23, onto the self-propelled module transporter, which is used to move large elements of hardware. It was then rolled to the Vehicle Assembly Building transfer aisle where teams will process it until it is ready for rocket stacking operations.

In the coming months, teams will integrate the rocket core stage atop the mobile launcher with the additional Artemis II flight hardware, including the twin solid rocket boosters, launch vehicle stage adapter, and the Orion spacecraft.

The Artemis II test flight will be NASA's first mission with crew under the Artemis campaign, sending NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, as well as CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back.

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