NASA ships Artemis III SLS core stage from Michoud to Kennedy for 2027 test mission

NASA said Monday it has rolled out the core stage for the Artemis III Space Launch System rocket from the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and loaded it onto the Pegasus barge for shipment to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a key hardware milestone for the agency’s next crewed Artemis mission in 2027.

According to NASA, the section moved from Michoud is the top four-fifths of the core stage, including the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank and forward skirt. Once it arrives at Kennedy, teams will complete stage outfitting and vertical integration, while NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program will stack the rocket’s components ahead of launch. The core stage is built by Boeing, NASA’s prime contractor for the stage’s overall design and assembly.

NASA said the completed core stage will stand 212 feet tall. Its two propellant tanks together can hold more than 733,000 gallons of super-chilled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. During flight, NASA said, the stage will feed four RS-25 engines, made by L3Harris Technologies, operating for more than eight minutes and generating more than 2 million pounds of thrust.

The milestone marks progress in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon and use lunar missions as preparation for eventual crewed flights to Mars. But NASA said in a March 24, 2026, program update that Artemis III is now planned as a 2027 mission focused on testing integrated systems and operational capabilities in Earth orbit, ahead of an Artemis IV lunar landing in 2028.

That updated role makes the hardware shipment an important production and integration step, even if Artemis III is no longer framed as the next lunar landing attempt. The SLS core stage is the rocket’s largest element and must be transported by barge from Michoud to Kennedy for final assembly.

The move also comes just days after Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed Artemis mission, launched April 1 and splashed down April 10 after a lunar-flyby test flight. Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in NASA’s April 20 release: “Seeing this SLS rocket hardware roll out is a powerful reminder of our progress toward returning humans to the lunar surface. This is the backbone of Artemis III. As it heads to Florida for final integration, we are one step closer to testing the critical capabilities needed to land Americans on the Moon, and ultimately, paving the way for our first crewed missions to Mars.”