SCIENCE · VERIFIED DEVELOPMENT
Artemis III Rocket Engines Installed at Kennedy Space Center
WHY IT MATTERS
The successful installation of these historic engines marks a crucial step towards the Artemis III mission, which will carry a crew into low Earth orbit in 2027, paving the way for future lunar exploration and potentially setting the stage for human missions to the Moon's south pole.
What happened
NASA technicians have begun installing the four RS-25 engines in the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis III mission. The engines, with unique serial numbers, previously powered multiple space shuttle missions.
Engine 2048, for example, helped launch NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik's mission aboard space shuttle Atlantis during STS-129 and flew on Space Shuttle Discovery during STS-95 in 1998, carrying 77-year-old space pioneer U. S.
Sen. John Glenn into orbit.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Historic Engines Take Their Place on Artemis III
NASA · Gary Daines · NASA media usage guidelines; third-party material excluded