NASA’s Artemis III Flight Hardware Stacks Up at Kennedy
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It is full steam ahead at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as teams process and assemble flight hardware in preparation for the upcoming crewed Artemis III mission. Less than three months after the safe return of the Artemis II crew, teams began stacking the twin SLS (Space Launch System) solid rocket booster segments inside […] The post NASA’s Artemis III Flight Hardware Stacks Up at Kennedy appeared first on NASA Science.
The left-hand and right-hand aft assembly solid rocket booster segments for NASA’s Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) rocket are secured to the mobile launcher at the agency’s Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, July 11, 2026.
NASA/Frank Michaux
It is full steam ahead at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as teams process and assemble flight hardware in preparation for the upcoming crewed Artemis III mission.
Less than three months after the safe return of the Artemis II crew, teams began stacking the twin SLS (Space Launch System) solid rocket booster segments inside Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in July, beginning with the left-hand aft assembly. The remaining segments were shipped via train to Kennedy in June, and they will be inspected, processed, and coated at the center’s Rotation, Processing, and Surge Facility and then placed into lift stands for further processing. Upon completion, teams will transport each remaining booster segment from the facility to the VAB to stack on top of the mobile launcher that has undergone repairs since the agency’s Artemis II launch.
In parallel, SLS core stage processing is underway inside the VAB, and in May, teams connected the four-fifths rocket stage with its engine section. The first two RS-25 engines arrived at the VAB in June, and once all four engines arrive and are processed, teams will work to install them to complete the core stage for integration atop the mobile launcher and support testing and launch operations.
Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida offload the second of four RS-25 SLS (Space Launch System) rocket engines built by L3 Harris Technologies for the agency’s Artemis III mission on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, inside the spaceport’s Vehicle Assembly Building.
NASA/Cory Huston
NASA Kennedy’s team began conducting monthly launch countdown simulations inside the Rocco Petrone Launch Control Center in May, which include practicing procedures for both loading propellant into the rocket and terminal countdown, or the last 10 minutes before launch. The team will continue rehearsing and refining procedures leading up to the mission’s launch.
Artemis III launch team members participate in a cryogenic propellant loading simulation on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, inside Firing Room 1 and 2 of the Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA/Glenn Benson
Across the center inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, technicians attached the heat shield for the Artemis III Orion crew module last week. Orion’s heat shield consists of 186 blocks of an ablative material called Avcoat, with each block meticulously and individually inspected. Upgrades were made to the heat shield design for Artemis III to achieve uniformity and consistent permeability of the Avcoat blocks, following extensive analysis and testing of unexpected behavior seen on the Artemis I heat shield.
Teams work to complete the installation of the heat shield on the Artemis III Orion spacecraft inside the high bay of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, July 6, 2026.
NASA/Kim Shiflett
Orion’s service module for Artemis III also completed acoustic testing inside the Operations and Checkout Building earlier in the summer. To simulate vibrations experienced during launch, technicians surround the module with a wall of high‑power speakers and measure how the structure responds using microphones, strain gauges, and accelerometers. Now that the Artemis III heat shield installation onto Orion’s crew module is complete, teams are completing preparations to integrate the crew and service modules together for the crewed mission.
Next year’s Artemis III mission will launch astronauts to low Earth orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft on top of SLS to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and test versions of commercial human landing systems needed to land Artemis IV astronauts on the Moon in 2028.
Artemis III crew members, NASA astronauts Randy Bresnick (far right) and Andre Douglas (far left), pose with teams from NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems in front of the right-hand aft assembly solid rocket booster segment of the Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, July 10, 2026.
NASA/Kim Shiflett
The post NASA’s Artemis III Flight Hardware Stacks Up at Kennedy appeared first on NASA Science.