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NASA’s Artemis III Flight Hardware Stacks Up at Kennedy

Image shows inside NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida with two large solid rocket booster segments stand upright on work platforms, surrounded by metal walkways, railings, and support structures. Technicians’ access equipment and pipes line the area, and an open flame trench sits centered beneath the boosters, highlighting the infrastructure used for assembly or processing of launch hardware. Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
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.

A technician at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center guides the RS‑25 engine during Artemis III processing inside a high bay. The metallic engine assembly is suspended by a yellow overhead crane as team members monitor its position and prepare it for installation. Photo credit: NASA/Cory Huston
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 conduct a cryogenic propellant loading simulation inside Firing Room 1 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Several controllers sit at illuminated consoles while large display screens show vehicle data, creating a busy control‑room environment focused on rehearsing liquid hydrogen and oxygen loading procedures for the Space Launch System core stage. Photo credit: Glenn Benson
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.

A detailed close-up view of NASA’s Artemis III crew module heat shield inside a facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The circular heat shield structure rests horizontally, supported by industrial equipment. Technicians and engineers stand nearby, wearing protective gear as they inspect and work around the hardware. Bright overhead lighting illuminates the textured ablative material and metallic components, highlighting the spacecraft’s preparation for future deep‑space missions. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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.

A group portrait of two of the Artemis III crew standing together at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, posing for a mission photo outdoors with facility structures visible in the background. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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