NASA Artemis III SLS Rocket Core Stage Arrival at Kennedy Space Center

NASA Artemis III SLS Rocket Core Stage Arrival at Kennedy Space Center

NASA’s Pegasus barge, carrying the top four-fifths of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) core stage for the Artemis III mission, arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Complex 39 on Monday, April 27, 2026.

NASA’s top four-fifths of the SLS core stage for the Artemis III mission was then offloaded from the Pegasus barge on Tuesday, April 28, 2026. The four-fifths contains the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt of the SLS rocket and will be joined with the remaining core stage segments at Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) High Bay 2 prior to rocket stacking operations. 

Artemis III will launch astronauts into Earth orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft on top of SLS in 2027 to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and other commercial spacecraft that are needed to land Artemis IV astronauts on the Moon in 2028.

Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/

Image Credits: NASA/Glenn Benson/Ben Smegelsky
Dates: April 27-28, 2026

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