NASA Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard joins Robert Champion, director of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and John Honeycutt, SLS Program manager and NASA, Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne personnel in front of the fully assembled core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket as it rolls out from Michoud to NASA’s Pegasus barge on Jan. 8. The core stage, which will provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help power the first Artemis mission to the Moon, will be shipped to NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, for the core stage Green Run test series. Boeing built the core stage at NASA’s facility in New Orleans, and Aerojet Rocketdyne upgraded and supplied the RS-25 engines. Manufacturing the SLS rocket’s core stages is a combined effort for NASA and its industry partners with more than 1,100 companies across the United States contributing toward the production of the SLS rocket.
Image Credit: NASA