KENNEDY SPACE CENTER/TITUSVILLE, FL – Fantastic news! In a show of continuing rapid progress – the giant SLS Core Stage is now officially stacked for NASA Artemis III earth orbiting astronaut mission scheduled in 2027 – targeted to test rendezvous and docking procedures to prototype commercial human lunar landers from both Blue Origin & SpaceX, NASA announced today, Oct. 28, via a press release with several images.

Technicians working inside of the Vehicle Assembly Building’s High Bay 3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carried out the complex task today, Oct. 28 – lifted the 212-foot rocket stage.

As NASA had announced last week at the ‘Artemis Acceleration” news briefing for the media.

“The core stage of the Artemis III rocket is officially stacked,” NASA confirmed Oct 28.

“To integrate the core stage, employees use a one-of-a-kind lifting beam to lift it inside of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Then, the core stage is joined with the completed solid rocket booster motor segments.”

They lifted the 21 story core stage with the lifting beam and placed it between the twin SRBs and onto the mobile launcher

“The core stage of the Space Launch System rocket serves as the backbone of the rocket, supporting the weight of the payload, upper stage, and Orion spacecraft, as well as the thrust of its four RS-25 engines and two five-segment solid rocket boosters attached to the engine and intertank sections.”

After completing testing and checkouts teams will roll the core stage and booster so called ‘short stack’ out to Launch Pad 39B.

Then they will conduct a tanking test where over 730,000 gallons of cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel will be loaded only into the core stage and launch teams will practice countdown procedures and timelines – as well as check for any gaseous leaks.

The Artemis III mission will last about 14 to 17 days and the foure person multinational astronaut crew will test rendezvous and docking between their Orion spacecraft and the two dissimilar commercial lunar landers

The purpose of Artemis III is carrying put critical preparation that will lead to future Moon landings as part of NASA’s Artemis return to the Moon with astronauts landing at the lunar South Pole.

The Artemis III mission comprises crewmembers NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca

NASA had already completed stacking of the twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) motor segments destined for use on NASA’s Artemis III mission launching to low Earth orbit targeting NET later summer 2027 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Media including Jean Wright of Space UpClose were taken on a tour inside the NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in early October to capture the progress of the Artemis III five segment SRB assembly and stacking operations atop the mobile launcher inside the VAB High Bay 3 at NASA KSC

The SRB stacking work by engineers with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems was completed on Sept. 30

Concurrently, teams also completed installation of all four RS-25 engines on the SLS core stage.”

Enjoy our SRB stacking photos and core stage photos taken by Jean Wright for Space UpClose  here.

The Artemis III SLS core stage was transported inside NASA’s Pegasus barge from NASA Michoud and arrived at the KSC Complex 39 Turn Basin Wharf at KSC Press Site on April 27th, to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Enjoy our core stage arrival, offloading and Pegasus tour photos taken by Ken Kremer and Jean Wright for Space UpClose

The Artemis III core stage was then moved and placed horizontally in the transfer aisle of the VAB before being lifted into High Bay 2, where it was connected to the engine section and its boat-tail, which were integrated in August 2025.

At 212 feet tall when fully assembled, the core stage houses two propellant tanks that collectively hold more than 733,000 gallons of super-chilled liquid propellant to fuel four RS-25 engines, as well as the flight computers, or avionics, that act as the brains of the rocket to control flight during ascent.

This marks the first time core stage assembly operations were taking place at NASA Kennedy.

The Artemis I & II core stages were fully assembled at Michoud before shipping to KSC

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