NASA ships SLS core stage to Florida, calling milestone 'one step closer' to Mars

NASA has shipped the core stage of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to Florida for Artemis III, a milestone the agency says brings it “one step closer” to returning astronauts to the Moon and, ultimately, preparing for crewed missions to Mars. The core stage—the largest section of the SLS—rolled out of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and onto the agency’s Pegasus barge for delivery to the Kennedy Space Center.

In a statement Monday, NASA said the shipment “marks key progress on the path to the agency’s first crewed lunar landing mission to the Moon under the Artemis program in two years.” “Seeing this SLS rocket hardware roll out is a powerful reminder of our progress toward returning humans to the lunar surface,” Lori Glaze, the acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in the statement.

“This is the backbone of Artemis III.

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.” Measuring 212 feet tall when complete, the core stage consists of the top four-fifths of the rocket—housing the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt—mated to its engine section.

After arrival at Kennedy, teams will complete stage outfitting and vertical integration before NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program stacks the rocket for launch. According to the agency, the fully integrated stage will fire for more than eight minutes at liftoff, generating more than 2 million pounds of thrust to send astronauts in the Orion spacecraft into orbit.

NASA says SLS will launch the crewed Artemis III mission in 2027. The agency describes Artemis III as a flight to Earth orbit aboard Orion to test “rendezvous and docking capabilities,” work that is intended to enable Artemis IV astronauts to land on the Moon in 2028.

NASA also says the SLS is the only rocket capable of sending Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch. The shipment to Florida sets up final integration of the rocket that will anchor the next phase of the Artemis program, which NASA frames as a stepping stone for deeper human exploration, including future crewed missions to Mars.