Although it won’t be blasting off until mid-2026 at the earliest, preparations are already well underway for the launch of NASA’s highly anticipated Artemis II mission.
The endeavor will involve the Orion spacecraft carrying its first-ever crew toward the moon after being launched by NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The Orion will come within 80 miles of the lunar surface before circling the moon and returning home.
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This week, NASA shared a time-lapse video (top) showing the rocket’s 212-foot-tall core stage being moved from a horizontal position to an upright position in High Bay 2 at the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“With the move to High Bay 2, NASA and Boeing technicians now have 360-degree access to the core stage both internally and externally,” the space agency said in a comment accompanying the video.
The core stage of NASA’s SLS rocket is a key component of the vehicle as it’s the main booster of three that propels the rocket and spacecraft — or whatever other payload it might be carrying — into space. It plays a critical role in supporting the entire structure of the SLS rocket, carrying the weight of both the payload and the upper stages, while also housing avionics systems that control flight operations.
The core creates around 1.6 million pounds of thrust at launch, while its two side boosters generate around 3.6 million pounds of thrust, creating a total thrust of about 8.8 million pounds. This makes it one of the world’s most powerful rockets, though it’s significantly less powerful than SpaceX’s Starship rocket, which generates a colossal 17 million pounds of thrust when it leaves the launchpad.
NASA’s SLS rocket has flown only once to date, in the Artemis I mission in 2022 that was essentially an uncrewed rehearsal for the upcoming Artemis II mission.
The SLS is at the center of NASA’s Artemis program, and following a successful Artemis II mission will carry a crew to lunar orbit, after which they’ll transfer to a SpaceX Starship spacecraft for the first visit by NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon since 1972. The mission, Artemis III, had been targeting 2026 but was recently pushed by NASA to no earlier than 2027.