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NASA’s Artemis II Rocket and Spacecraft Make Their Way to Launch Pad

The headshot image of Monika Luabeya

Monika Luabeya

Jan 21, 2026
Image Article
NASA's Artemis II SLS rocket - with its distinctive butterscotch orange-brown color- and Orion spacecraft are on top of a massive platform. The platform has a banner with the Artemis logo on it on the left and an American flag on the right. The rocket and platform are moved by an immense machine called the crawler-transporter, which has treads like a tank. The view is from the ground up, so the deep blue sky is the background for most of this picture.
NASA/Sam Lott

This Jan. 17, 2026, image shows NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft rolling out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s massive Crawler-Transporter, upgraded for the Artemis program, carries the powerful SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft to Launch Pad 39B in preparation for the Artemis II mission.

Moving at a maximum speed of just 0.82 mph, the crawler carried the towering Moon rocket and spacecraft slowly but surely toward the pad, reaching its destination at 6:42 p.m. EST after a nearly 12-hour journey. The Artemis II test flight will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon and back. It is another step toward new U.S.-crewed missions to the Moon’s surface, leading to a sustained presence on the Moon that will help the agency prepare to send the first astronauts – Americans – to Mars.

See more photos from the rollout.

Image credit: NASA/Sam Lott