NASA Artemis II Moon Rocket Rollout: The Starting Line | Kennedy Space Center
NASA’s crawler-transporter 2 carrying the agency’s Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, secured to the mobile launcher, begins rolling out from High Bay 3 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. The Artemis II test flight will take Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), around the Moon and back to Earth no later than April 2026.
This is a multi-hour trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39B. The four-mile journey on the crawler-transporter-2, at a careful speed of roughly 1 mile per hour, will take up to 12 hours. The massive crawler keeps the mobile launcher and rocket perfectly level throughout the trip, even on the gentle slopes of the crawlerway. Once at the pad, the stack will be secured, ground support systems will be connected, and teams will conduct a full wet dress rehearsal at the end of January to practice fueling and countdown procedures in preparation for flight.
The crawler-transporters, formally known as the Missile Crawler Transporter Facilities, are a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport launch vehicles from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) along the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39. They were originally used to transport the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets during the Apollo, Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs. They were then used to transport Space Shuttles from 1981 to 2011. The crawler-transporters carry vehicles on the mobile launcher platforms (MLPs) used by NASA, and after each launch return to the pad to take the platform back to the VAB.
The two crawler-transporters were designed and built by Marion Power Shovel Company using some components designed and built by Rockwell International at a cost of US$14 million (US$128.5 million in 2022) each. Upon its construction, the crawler-transporter became the largest self-powered land vehicle in the world.
Image Date: Jan. 17, 2026
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