NASA rolls out Artemis 3 SLS rocket's huge core stage to gear up for 2027 launch (photo)

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A week and a half after the epic Artemis 2 mission splashed down, the biggest piece of NASA's next moon rocket is on the move.

On Monday (April 20), NASA rolled out the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will launch Artemis 3, the next mission in the agency's Artemis program of moon exploration.

The huge rocket body emerged from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, then was loaded onto the agency's Pegasus barge for shipment to the launch site — Kennedy Space Center on Florida's Space Coast.

The milestone was a big step toward the launch of Artemis 3, which is targeted for mid-2027. The crewed mission will test rendezvous and docking operations in Earth orbit between NASA's Orion capsule and one or both of the private lunar landers the agency has contracted for the Artemis program — SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon.

If all goes well with that mission, humans will touch down near the moon's south pole on Artemis 4, which is currently slated to lift off in late 2028. (It's unclear at the moment which lander will fly on that mission.)

"Seeing this SLS rocket hardware roll out is a powerful reminder of our progress toward returning humans to the lunar surface," Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement on Monday.

"This is the backbone of Artemis 3," she added. "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."

The final, integrated Artemis 3 SLS core stage will stand 212 feet (64.6 meters) tall. The part that rolled out from Michoud on Monday was just 80% of that height, because it was lacking a sizable piece — the engine section.

The rollout came just 10 days after the successful conclusion of Artemis 2, which sent four astronauts on a historic flight around the moon.

Artemis 2 was the first crewed moon mission since 1972, and the first human spaceflight for both SLS and Orion. It also broke humanity's all-time distance record, sending people farther from Earth than they'd ever gone before — 252,760 miles (406,778 kilometers).