MAF_20200724 Pegasus at MAF

These images show NASA’s Pegasus barge at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans as it transported the Artemis I launch vehicle stage adapter (LVSA) of the agency’s Space Launch System rocket to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Leaving with the adapter from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Pegasus made a brief stop at Michoud to offload supplies and equipment before continuing its to Kennedy. The LVSA connects the deep space rocket’s 212-foot-tall core stage to the rocket’s upper stage and will be used for Artemis I, the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to the Moon through NASA’s Artemis program. Once at Kennedy, the LVSA will undergo Artemis I launch preparations. Only the SLS core stage, currently in final testing at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, remains to be shipped to Kennedy on Pegasus. The core stage is produced at Michoud. Together with four RS-25 engines, the rocket’s massive 212-foot-tall core stage — the largest stage NASA has ever built — and its twin solid rocket boosters produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send NASA’s Orion spacecraft, astronauts and supplies beyond Earth’s