20230311_CS2_ES_Mate_Montage_v2-VOYsub-UHDh264

As NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) prepare to announce the four astronauts who will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, teams at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans are working to prepare their ride. All five major elements of the core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket are fully integrated. Watch as technicians line up the stage and insert 360 bolts to join the last major element to the rest of the previously assembled structure, and then move the 212-foot-tall core stage into position to prepare to install its four RS-25 engines. At launch the rocket’s core stage and its RS-25 engines, along with two solid rocket boosters, will produce more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send the Artemis II crew beyond Earth orbit to the Moon.