NEW ORLEANS — The core stage of the rocket that will send astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years has left a manufacturing facility, headed for integration and assembly of the vehicle in preparation for launch next year.
of Artemis 2 Mission Scheduled to carry four astronauts into lunar orbit in 2025, the first time humans have done so since the 1970s, its SLS booster rolled out of the tall hangar doors of Michaux’s Vertical Assembly Center around 7:30 a.m. CDT Tuesday to begin its epic journey. Hundreds of spectators, mostly Michaux employees and their guests, gathered in the humid New Orleans early morning to watch the historic rocket stage be moved to its next destination. Lunar Mission unload.
The ceremony began with a performance of “Oh When the Saints” by the Roots of Music Marching Crusaders, a local school marching band, opening the morning’s panel of speakers. The boosters passed through a large gate that led into the main parking lot. Once they were almost out of sight, the boosters turned onto the main road and continued on towards Pegasus.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center director Joseph Pelphrey addresses the crowd following the rollout of the Artemis 2 SLS booster at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, July 16, 2024. (Image source: Space.com / Josh Dinner)
“For more than 60 years, Marshall and Michaud have led some of our nation’s greatest achievements in space exploration, from the incredible achievements of the Apollo program to 135 shuttle missions to this milestone we celebrate here today,” said NASA Space Exploration Administrator Joseph Pelphrey. Marshall Space Flight Center he told the crowd in his opening remarks.
Speaking to an audience made up mostly of engineers who have been working on the SLS booster over the past few years, he emphasized, “We’re here today to celebrate the hardware, but it’s the people who got us here to achieve our mission goals.”
Aretomis 2 astronauts Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen address a crowd at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, July 16, 2024. (Image source: Space.com / Josh Dinner)
As each small milestone in preparation for the Artemis mission is achieved, the overall Artemis program becomes clearer. NASA’s Artemis program goals are: Permanent presence on the Moon The Moon’s south pole contains high concentrations of water ice, a very useful resource. space Potentially capable of producing essential commodities from drinking water to rocket fuel, the base is intended to be a starting point for honing the technology and requirements for one day replicating something similar on Earth. Mars But that’s still a long way off.
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November 16, 2022, launch of the Artemis 1 Space Launch System rocket. (Image courtesy of Josh Diener)
of First Artemis mission begins November 16, 2022, with drone Orion Artemis 2 was put into lunar orbit. It returned to Earth a few weeks later, on December 11, and splashed down in the ocean. Artemis 2’s stay there wasn’t very long (about 11 days), and it technically didn’t even enter lunar orbit.
Instead, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman , Victor Glover , Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen The Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA) Orion will be launched on a free-return trajectory around the Moon, allowing gravity to return it to Earth after one orbit around the Moon. This trajectory will ensure that Orion will return to Earth when the Artemis 2 crew performs the spacecraft’s first manned flight.
Once launched, Artemis 2 will be the first spacecraft to carry astronauts into orbit. Moon This will be the first time the moon has been orbited since the final Apollo mission in 1972, but that’s not the only first the upcoming flight will achieve: Three of the four Artemis 2 crew members represent the first people in history to fly to the moon. Glover, who will serve as the mission’s pilot, will be the first person of color to orbit the moon, Koch will be the first woman, and Hansen will be the first non-American.
Aretomis 2 astronauts (right) Jeremy Hansen and (left) Reid Wiseman sit during the opening remarks at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, July 16, 2024. (Image source: Space.com / Josh Dinner)
Wiseman and Hansen were also in attendance and marveled at the boosters that would launch them into space.
“I mean, it’s an amazing sight,” Wiseman told Space.com. “We talk a lot about Artemis and flying to the moon, but people forget that the hardware is right here,” Wiseman said, adding, “The Orion spacecraft is at Kennedy Space Center. Our booster is at Kennedy Space Center, and we watched the core stage go by. Our next stop is Kennedy Space Center, where all the pieces are being assembled. And when you actually see the rocket and you think about all the people who put this rocket together in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and all across the United States, from dreaming it to actually building it, that’s what America is all about. I love it. It’s amazing.”
Following the success of Artemis 1 Artemis 2 was scheduled for November 2024, but NASA announced that some systems on the Orion spacecraft were performing less than optimally, there were problems with the heat shield during re-entry, and Issues discovered This is part of the life support system installed in Artemis II’s Orion.
The Artemis 2 SLS booster sits outside NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on July 16, 2024. (Image source: Space.com / Josh Dinner)
“If we want to accomplish great things, we need to all work together and put everyone’s contribution into the effort. And [booster] “This is just one example. Throwing four humans around the moon with Artemis 2 is a very visual example,” Hansen told Space.com after the booster disappeared from view.
Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch after September 2025, and NASA has also postponed the next mission by a year, aiming for Artemis 3 to launch after September 2026. However, that mission has its own unique hardware dependencies that could result in a further delay.
Artemis 3 is the first in a program aimed at landing astronauts on the moon, but before that can happen, the mission’s main hardware must also be completed. Starship which National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mission Lunar Lander .
Starship stands at the Starbase launch pad in Texas on November 15, 2023. (Image source: Space.com / Josh Dinner)
Starship’s test flight has already begun, marking its fifth. Planned by the end of summer But 2026 is a pretty aggressive timeline for a spacecraft that’s not even in orbit yet. Extravehicular Activity The spacesuits that Artemis 3 astronauts will wear as they traverse the lunar surface are being made by a Houston-based company. Axiomatic Space Still waiting for completion.
Artemis 2’s SLS booster is slowly moving toward NASA’s Pegasus craft, which appears as a small silvery tube in the distance to the right. (Image source: Space.com / Josh Dinner)
After completing its one-mile journey Tuesday morning, the Artemis 2 booster will be loaded onto NASA’s Pegasus ship for the 900-mile journey from the marshes of New Orleans across the Gulf of Mexico to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Pegasus is scheduled to arrive at that spaceport on July 23, where the stage will be removed from the ship and moved to the Spacecraft Assembly Building across the street.
Once inside the rocket, the boosters undergo a series of system and hardware checks, after which the two solid rocket boosters, Intermediate cryogenic propulsion stage It will be used to accelerate Orion to Earth orbital speed, as well as for the Orion Close-Proximity Operations Demonstration, the Orion spacecraft itself, and its service module.
