NASA Joins the Artemis III Moon Rocket's Core Stage to Its Boosters

NASA has joined the core stage of its Artemis III Moon rocket to the twin solid rocket boosters it will fly with. The agency said technicians lifted the 212-foot stage inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and integrated it alongside the boosters in High Bay 3, setting it onto the mobile launcher with a lifting beam NASA describes as one of a kind.

The lift is the step that turns separately built hardware into a single stack. In its image release, NASA calls the result the short stack configuration and dates the completion to Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026.

NASA says the next step is a fueling rehearsal at the launch pad. Once testing and checkouts are complete, teams will roll the core stage and booster stack out to Launch Pad 39B for a tanking test. NASA's plan calls for liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to be loaded into the core stage alone while the launch team practices countdown procedures and timelines.

Artemis III is to carry NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas, along with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, in the Orion spacecraft on top of the agency's Space Launch System rocket. NASA says the mission will test rendezvous and docking between Orion and commercial spacecraft from Blue Origin and SpaceX, ahead of a future mission to land astronauts on the Moon.