Members of the Artemis II crew met with the crew of NASA’s Pegasus barge prior to their departure to deliver the core stage of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket to the Space Coast.
NASA astronaut and pilot of the Artemis II mission Victor Glover met the crew July 15.
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, commander, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist, visited the barge July 16 shortly before the flight hardware was loaded onto it.
Pegasus is currently transporting the SLS core stage from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be integrated and prepared for launch. During the Artemis II test flight, the core stage with its four RS-25 engines will provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help send the Artemis II crew around the Moon.
Pegasus, which was previously used to ferry space shuttle tanks, was modified and refurbished to ferry the SLS rocket’s massive core stage. At 212 feet in length and 27.6 feet in diameter, the Moon rocket stage is more than 50 feet longer than the space shuttle external tank.
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NASA is working to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.