IOZ ESM Team Photos

NASA and its partners work on the solar array wings for the agency’s Artemis III Orion spacecraft on Thursday, April 30, 2026, inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orion’s solar arrays, manufactured and installed by ESA (European Space Agency) and its contractor Airbus, have been temporarily installed ahead of acoustic testing on the spacecraft. The Artemis III mission will launch astronauts in 2027 to Earth’s orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft on top of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and commercial spacecraft needed to land Artemis IV astronauts on the Moon in 2028.