NASA Begins Shipping Artemis III SLS Core Stage to Kennedy Space Center

Kuala Lumpur — NASA has started transporting the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis III mission, marking a major milestone toward the agency’s next crewed flight in the Artemis program.

On Monday, April 20, 2026, engineers at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans rolled out the top four-fifths of the SLS core stage using specialized transporters. The massive section — which includes the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt — was carefully moved to the agency’s Pegasus barge for its sea journey to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The core stage is the largest and most powerful part of the SLS rocket. Standing approximately 212 feet (64.6 meters) tall, it will hold more than 733,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant to power four RS-25 engines. These engines will generate over 2 million pounds of thrust for more than eight minutes, propelling the Orion spacecraft and its crew toward low Earth orbit.

Once the core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center (a voyage expected to take 6–8 days), teams from NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems will complete final integration, including mating it with the engine section (which arrived earlier) and the solid rocket boosters.

“This shipment represents significant progress toward Artemis III and our goal of returning humans to the lunar surface,” said NASA officials. The mission, currently targeted for mid-2027, will serve as a critical test flight. Instead of an immediate lunar landing, Artemis III will focus on rendezvous and docking operations in low Earth orbit with commercial lunar landers developed by industry partners (SpaceX and Blue Origin). These tests will pave the way for the first crewed lunar landing on Artemis IV in 2028.

The successful rollout comes shortly after the completion of Artemis II, NASA’s uncrewed (or crewed, depending on final confirmation) lunar flyby mission earlier this month. Boeing, the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, along with partners like L3Harris Technologies (responsible for the RS-25 engines), continues to support the assembly and testing efforts.

NASA’s Artemis program is the foundation of the agency’s “Moon to Mars” strategy, aiming to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars.

Quick Facts: Artemis III SLS Core Stage

• Height: 212 feet (64.6 m)
• Diameter: 27.6 feet (8.4 m)
• Propellant capacity: >733,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen
• Engines: 4 × RS-25
• Thrust: >2 million pounds
• Role: Primary propulsion for launching Orion and enabling orbital docking tests