NASA Manufacturing SLS Core Stages for Artemis II and Artemis III

This video highlights the latest progress in manufacturing the second and third core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the world’s most powerful rocket, for the crewed missions of the agency’s Artemis program. Technicians are simultaneously manufacturing SLS core stages at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. 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 will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send NASA’s Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and supplies beyond Earth’s orbit to the Moon. The core stage consists of five major structures. All the main core stage structures for Artemis II, the first mission with astronauts, have been built and are being outfitted with electronics, feedlines, propulsion systems, and other components. Technicians are currently wiring and performing functional tests on the avionics inside both the forward skirt and intertank sections. The engine section — the most complicated part of the entire stage — is in production assembly. Engineers are welding the core stage structures for the Artemis III mission, which will land the f