NASA Artemis III core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center for assembly

The 212-foot core stage of NASA's Space Launch System for the Artemis III mission arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Monday after a 900-mile barge journey from New Orleans, ABC7 Los Angeles reported.

The arrival marks a critical step in NASA's plan to test commercial lunar landers in late 2027, setting the stage for the first crewed moon landing since Apollo 17 in 1972 — a milestone targeted for the Artemis IV mission in 2028.

The core stage, manufactured at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, houses the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank and forward skirt — the structural backbone that will power the Orion spacecraft toward the moon. The top four-fifths of the stage were moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Tuesday, where technicians will integrate it with a boat-tail and engine section to complete full stage assembly, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

Artemis III will not attempt a lunar landing itself. Instead, the four-person crew will test rendezvous and docking procedures between the Orion spacecraft and commercial landers provided by SpaceX and Blue Origin, serving as a full dress rehearsal before boots touch the lunar surface.

The mission follows the successful Artemis II flight, which concluded April 10. That crew completed a 10-day lunar fly-by, covering 694,481 miles around the moon — the first humans to travel to the moon's vicinity since the Apollo program ended more than five decades ago.

If Artemis III proceeds on its late-2027 schedule and validates the commercial lander systems, NASA plans to conduct Artemis IV as early as 2028, which would mark humanity's first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 touched down on the moon in December 1972.

With the core stage now at Kennedy Space Center and assembly underway, NASA is on track for a late-2027 Artemis III launch — the final checkpoint before the agency attempts to put humans back on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.