NASA’s Artemis I moon mission is scheduled to launch on August 29, providing the first integrated test of its new deep-space exploration systems: the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and supporting ground systems. At launch, the SLS will become the most powerful rocket ever, producing 15 percent more thrust than the Apollo-era Saturn V rocket. Though uncrewed, the Artemis I mission will carry three test mannequins in the Orion crew module to measure stresses and the effects of radiation during its trip to lunar orbit, returning to Earth 42 days later. The next mission will be Artemis II, a crewed mission to lunar orbit, planned for May of 2024—and Artemis III is scheduled to land humans on the lunar surface once again in 2025. Gathered here, photographs of some of the work put into SLS, Orion, and supporting programs in recent years, as launch day approaches.

The SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard stands atop the mobile launcher as it moves up the ramp at Launch Pad 39B on August 17, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. #

The doctor Patrick Shea inspects a 1.3 percent scale model of SLS in a wind tunnel at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, in 2016. The tests were designed to determine the powerful rocket's behavior as it climbs and accelerates through the sound barrier after launch. To also test a new optical-measurement method, Ames engineers coated the SLS model with unsteady pressure-sensitive paint, which, under the lighting, glows dimmer or brighter according to the air pressure acting on different areas of the rocket. #

Welders work inside a large liquid-hydrogen test tank for NASA's SLS at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, plugging holes left after the tank was assembled in 2016. Six 22-foot-tall barrels and two domed caps were joined together to create the qualification test article. Qualification test articles, like the one shown here, closely replicate flight hardware and are built using identical processing procedures. #

The second and final qualification motor (QM-2) test for the Space Launch System’s booster takes place at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems test facilities in Promontory, Utah, on June 28, 2016. During the SLS flight the boosters will provide more than 75 percent of the thrust needed to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth. #

Heat-shield technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida recently finished meticulously applying more than 180 blocks of ablative material to the heat shield for the Orion spacecraft set to carry astronauts around the Moon on Artemis II. The heat shield is one of the most crucial elements of Orion and protects the capsule and the astronauts inside from the nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures, about half as hot at the sun, experienced during reentry through Earth’s atmosphere when coming home from lunar velocities. #

The Orion crew module undergoes a direct-field acoustic test, where stacks of more than 1,500 speakers were used to expose the spacecraft to the maximum acoustic levels that it will experience at launch. Spacecraft response and sound pressure data were collected with microphones, strain gauges, and accelerometers. #

NASA technicians complete the final test to qualify Orion’s parachute system for flights with astronauts. Over the course of eight tests at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, engineers evaluated the performance of Orion’s parachute system during normal landing sequences as well as several failure scenarios and a variety of potential aerodynamic conditions to ensure astronauts can return safely from deep space missions. #

The USS John P. Murtha and a test version of the Orion capsule are seen at sunset, during Underway Recovery Test-7 (URT-7) in the Pacific Ocean on November 1, 2018. URT-7 was one in a series of tests that the Exploration Ground Systems recovery team, along with the U.S. Navy, conducted to verify and validate procedures and hardware that will be used to recover the Orion spacecraft after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean. #

At Launch Pad 39B, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, construction workers weld together large segments of the support hardware for a new flame deflector in the flame trench to support upcoming SLS launches, on July 21, 2017. #

A flow test of the Ignition Overpressure Protection and Sound Suppression water deluge system, seen in progress at Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on October 15, 2018. At peak flow, the water reaches about 100 feet in the air above the pad surface. The testing is part of Exploration Ground System's preparation for the new SLS rocket. During the launch of SLS missions, this water deluge system will release about 450,000 gallons of water across the mobile launcher and flame deflector to reduce the extreme heat and energy generated by the rocket during ignition and liftoff. #

Engineers use a suited mannequin to conduct vibration testing at Kennedy Space Center on Orion’s seat and energy dampening system—called the Crew Impact Attenuation System—for qualification ahead of Artemis II. This "moonikin" will also fly aboard the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis I mission. #

Two mannequins are installed in the passenger seats inside the Artemis I Orion crew module atop the SLS rocket in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 8, 2022. As part of the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE) investigation, the two female mannequins, Helga and Zohar, are equipped with radiation detectors, while Zohar also wears a radiation-protection vest, to determine the radiation risk on its way to the Moon. #

Team members from NASA's Orion program and the Ground Systems Development and Operations program practice egress training in October of 2015, using a mockup of the Orion crew module in the 6.2-million-gallon Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. During the three-day testing, personnel simulated approaching the spacecraft floating in the Pacific Ocean and what it would take to assist the crew as they exit. #

NASA's Super Guppy aircraft taxies onto the tarmac after touching down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Super Guppy was carrying the Orion Stage Adapter (OSA), a section of the SLS rocket. The OSA will connect the Orion spacecraft to the upper part of the SLS rocket. #

The test version of Orion attached to the Launch Abort System for the Ascent Abort-2 flight test is moved on a transport at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on May 22, 2019, along the 21.5 mile trek to Space Launch Complex 46. During the successful flight test, the Orion spacecraft was launched on a booster more than six miles in altitude, where Orion’s launch-abort system would pull the capsule and its crew away to safety if an emergency occurs during ascent atop the SLS. #

The Pegasus barge, carrying the mighty SLS core stage, arrives at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 27, 2021, after journeying from the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. #

An aerial view of the 212-foot-long SLS core stage being offloaded from the Pegasus Barge on April 29, 2021, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. #

Teams with NASA's Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs lift the SLS core stage—the largest part of the rocket—and prepare to move it over to High Bay 3 in the Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will be placed atop the mobile launcher in between the twin solid rocket boosters, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 10, 2021. The 188,000-pound core stage, with its four RS-25 engines, will provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust during launch and ascent, and coupled with the boosters, will provide more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send the Artemis I mission to space. #

In High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, booster segments are lowered into place on the mobile launcher for the SLS on March 3, 2021. #

Workers assist as a booster segment is lowered onto the rest of the booster in the Vehicle Assembly Building on February 23, 2021. #

An overhead view shows the fully stacked twin solid rocket boosters for NASA’s SLS rocket on top of the mobile launcher on June 9, 2021. #

The Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis I mission, fully assembled with its launch-abort system, is lifted above the SLS rocket in the Vehicle Assembly Building on October 20, 2021, completing assembly for the Artemis I flight test. #

The Crawler-Transporter 2, driven by engineers and technicians, arrives at the Vehicle Assembly Building on March 11, 2022. The crawler will go inside the VAB, where it will slide under the Artemis I SLS on the mobile launcher and carry it to Launch Complex 39B for a wet dress rehearsal test ahead of the Artemis I launch. #

NASA’s mobile launcher sits atop Crawler-Transporter 2, and moves along the crawlerway on September 10, 2019, after spending a week and a half inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida due to the approach of Hurricane Dorian. The nearly 400-foot-tall structure was moved from Launch Pad 39B to the VAB for safekeeping on August 30. The storm passed about 70 miles east of the spaceport. #

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the Artemis I launch director, looks out the windows of Firing Room One of the Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center as NASA’s SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard atop a mobile launcher rolls out of the Vehicle Assembly Building, headed to Launch Complex 39B on March 17, 2022, for a wet dress rehearsal. #

The full moon is in view from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on June 14, 2022. The Artemis I SLS and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher, were being prepared for a wet dress rehearsal to practice timelines and procedures for launch. #

The sky begins to clear before dawn, highlighting the Artemis I rocket at Launch Pad 39 at the Kennedy Space Center, in this view from Titusville, Florida, on August 23, 2022. #

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