NASA Barge Crew Describes What It’s Like to Transport Moon Rocket

Meet the crew of NASA’s Pegasus barge and learn how they transported the core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. The stage for NASA’s Moon rocket arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Artemis I launch preparations on April 27. Pegasus ferried the huge, 212-foot-tall rocket stage from NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, where it underwent Green Run testing, to the Space Coast. During its 900-mile journey, the rocket stage was in the hands of a skilled crew from Center Operations at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The team carefully planned and orchestrated the core stage’s voyage on both a river and the ocean. To ensure the stage’s safe travels, the Pegasus team worked closely with NASA personnel as well as with Boeing, the lead contractor for the core stage, and Aerojet Rocketdyne, the RS-25 engines lead contractor. For decades, NASA has used barges to move large, heavy spaceflight hardware from testing and manufacturing sites to launch sites at Kennedy. Pegasus was specially modified to carry the deep space rocket hardware for NASA’s Artemis program, and the SLS core stage is the longest item ever shipped by any NASA barge. The Pegasus crew is responsible for safely transporting the hardware for NASA’s next-generation Moon missions.