NASA said the Artemis III Space Launch System core stage was integrated alongside twin solid rocket boosters inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida¹.

Photo captions on the NASA image article describe the 212-foot stage being lifted from the transfer aisle on Oct. 22, 2026, and placed between booster nose cones already set on the mobile launcher, completing a short-stack configuration¹. One caption dates that integration to Oct. 25; another NASA line on the same page dates it to Oct. 28¹.

NASA said Artemis III is planned to launch astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano in Orion on SLS to test rendezvous and docking with commercial spacecraft from Blue Origin and SpaceX ahead of later lunar landing missions¹. A launch date was not given in the image article¹.

Sources

1. NASAArtemis III SLS Core Stage Joins Boosters at Kennedy2:59 PM

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