Artemis I LH Forward Assembly Lift and Mate

This view from high up in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, shows a crane lifting the left-hand forward assembly for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) in the transfer aisle on March 1, 2021. Workers are lifting the segment up for transfer into High Bay 3, where it will be attached to the center forward segment on the mobile launcher (ML). Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs teams have been stacking the twin five-segment boosters on the ML over a number of weeks. When the core stage arrives, it will join the boosters on the mobile launcher, followed by the interim cryogenic propulsion stage and Orion spacecraft. Manufactured by Northrop Grumman in Utah, the twin boosters provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust at launch. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the SLS. Under the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will test the Orion spacecraft and SLS as an integrated system ahead of crewed flights to the Moon.