Takes Barge Ride From Michoud Assembly Facility

Boeing and NASA moved the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis II test flight from inside the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, to the Pegasus barge for its ferry trip to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The move took place on July 16, the 55th Anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the mission that landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. The barge trip to Kennedy is about 900 miles, and when it arrives, the rocket core will be moved into the Vehicle Assembly Building where engineers will prep it and attach the other rocket components of the spacecraft and the Orion crew module.

The SLS core stage is the largest ever produced by NASA at 212 feet tall and contains two propellant tanks that together hold 733,000 gallons of liquid propellant.

During the launch, the propellant feeds four RS-25 engines for an eight-minute burn that produces more than 2 million pounds of thrust to lift the rocket with the Orion spacecraft carrying four astronauts on its journey to the Moon.

John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said, “The delivery of the SLS core stage for Artemis II to Kennedy Space Center signals a shift from manufacturing to launch readiness as teams continue to make progress on hardware for all major elements for future SLS rockets. We are motivated by the success of Artemis I and focused on working toward the first crewed flight under Artemis.”

FMI:  www.nasa.gov, www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/