Boeing Delivers World’s Most Powerful Rocket’s Core Stage to NASA

Boeing on Tuesday delivered the core stage of NASA’s first Space Launch System (SLS) deep space exploration rocket, moving it out of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Pegasus barge.

NASA will transport the SLS core stage to its Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in the next few days for “Green Run” hot-fire engine tests later this year.  After inspection and refurbishing for launch, the stage moves to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

At Kennedy, the core stage will be integrated with the Interim Cryogenic Upper Stage (ICPS) and NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon – the first launch of a human-rated spacecraft to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

SLS Core Stage 1 is the largest single rocket stage ever built by NASA and its industry partners. The rollout follows several weeks of final testing and check-outs after NASA’s declaration of “core stage complete” during a December 9 Artemis Day celebration at Michoud.

SLS is the world’s most powerful rocket, evolvable and built to carry astronauts and cargo farther and faster than any rocket in history.  Its unmatched capabilities will deliver human-rated spacecraft, habitats and science missions to the moon, Mars and beyond as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

“We are applying what we’ve learned from development of the first core stage to accelerate work on core stages 2 and 3, already in production at Michoud, as well as the Exploration Upper Stage that will power NASA’s most ambitious Artemis missions,” said John Shannon, Boeing SLS vice president and program manager.