Space Launch System

Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center moved the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 moon mission into the Vehicle Assembly Building Tuesday for stacking on top of the Space Launch System.

Workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center have lifted the Orion Stage Adapter on top of the Space Launch System moon rocket, adding the structure housing 10 CubeSat rideshare payloads heading into deep space on the Artemis 1 mission. But three of the CubeSat missions missed their opportunity to fly on the first SLS mission.

The swing arms on the mobile launch tower for NASA’s Space Launch System released and retracted Sunday night inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, another key test on the march toward liftoff of the Artemis 1 moon mission.

The earliest NASA’s first Space Launch System moon rocket could roll out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to its seaside launch complex in Florida is in late November, officials told Spaceflight Now, leaving little time to conduct a critical fueling test, roll the rocket back into the VAB for final closeouts, then return to the pad for liftoff before the end of the year.

NASA has stacked the next piece of the agency’s first Space Launch System moon rocket, adding an adapter structure to connect the launch vehicle’s core stage and upper stage, which is scheduled to be installed next week.

The core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System, the heavy-lift rocket designed to carry astronauts back to the moon, has been installed between two solid-fueled boosters on a mobile launch platform at the Kennedy Space Center for an unpiloted lunar test flight.

Technicians inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center began a delicate, multi-day task Thursday to lift the 94-ton core stage of the first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket for mounting between two solid-fueled boosters already stacked for a test flight to the moon.