Artemis I OSA Lift and Mate

Inside NASA’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, teams from Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs mate the Orion Stage Adapter (OSA) to the interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) on top of the Space Launch System (SLS) on Oct. 9, 2021. The addition of the OSA marks the last piece of SLS rocket hardware to be added before crews soon add the Orion spacecraft and its launch abort system on top of the OSA. The ring-shaped OSA is filled with 10 shoebox-sized CubeSats that will deploy when the ICPS separates from Orion on its way to the Moon during Artemis I, which will be the first integrated flight test of the SLS and Orion spacecraft. In later missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone on the way to Mars.