Artemis 1 Update: The SLS Core Stage Booster Has Now Been Soft-Mated with Its Twin SRBs in Florida...

Earlier this morning, workers inside High Bay 3 at Kennedy Space Center's (KSC) Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) successfully lowered the Space Launch System's (SLS) Artemis 1 core stage between its twin solid rocket boosters (SRBs). Known as a soft mate, the positioning of the 212-foot-tall stage atop its mobile launcher allows the booster to be securely bolted, or hard-mated, to its SRBs by tomorrow. And sometime next week, the adjoining element to be installed on the SLS stack will be the launch vehicle stage adapter...which connects the United Launch Alliance-provided Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) and the Orion spacecraft to SLS. And on the week of June 20, the ICPS itself will be transported to the VAB for attachment to NASA's newest Moon rocket. A series of tests will then ensue on SLS and its ground support equipment inside High Bay 3 over the next month or so before Orion itself is placed on the mammoth vehicle in August—thus completing assembly of the 321-foot-tall rocket.

Following a wet dress rehearsal that's scheduled to take place at KSC's Launch Complex 39B in September, SLS will then commence America's long-awaited crewed return to the Moon as early as this November... Stay tuned.


NASA