The Artemis 2 moon rocket now stands fully stacked inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This milestone moves NASA closer to launching astronauts around the moon in early 2026.
On May 1, NASA technicians completed the stacking process by attaching the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) to the SLS core stage. This upper stage carries the Orion spacecraft and will propel it out of Earth’s orbit toward the moon.
Artemis 2 will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The mission will be the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis program, designed to build a sustainable lunar presence and pave the way to Mars.
Unlike Artemis 1, which sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft into lunar orbit in 2022, Artemis 2 will not enter orbit around the moon. Instead, the ICPS will slingshot Orion around the far side of the moon and send the crew on a direct return path to Earth.
Engineers postponed Artemis 2 after discovering heat shield damage during Orion’s reentry on Artemis 1. The repair process took over a year, pushing Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 into later timelines.
NASA now plans to launch Artemis 3 in 2027. That mission will land astronauts on the moon using SpaceX’s Starship vehicle. However, the Trump administration’s 2026 budget proposal recommends ending both the SLS and Orion programs after Artemis 3.
Despite that uncertainty, the fully stacked Artemis 2 moon rocket shows NASA’s determination to return humans to deep space. With hardware in place and astronauts training, the agency moves steadily toward its first lunar flyby with a crew in over 50 years.
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