{"id":589338,"date":"2026-04-17T07:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/589338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T07:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:32:18","slug":"nasas-mobile-launcher-rolls-ahead-of-artemis-iii-preparation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/589338\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Mobile Launcher Rolls\u00a0Ahead of Artemis III Preparation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following the conclusion of\u00a0NASA\u2019s\u00a0Artemis II\u00a0test flight, teams at\u00a0the agency\u2019s\u00a0Kennedy\u00a0Space Center in Florida\u00a0are shifting\u00a0focus to Artemis III, which is targeted to launch next year, by rolling the mobile launcher from Launch Complex 39B to\u00a0NASA\u2019s\u00a0Kennedy Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Florida in preparation for rocket stacking operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The mobile launcher began its\u00a0approximately\u00a04-mile\u00a0trek\u00a0on\u00a0top\u00a0of the\u00a0agency\u2019s crawler-transporter 2 at\u00a08:11 a.m.\u00a0EDT\u00a0Thursday, April 16,\u00a0two weeks after sending NASA astronauts\u00a0and\u00a0Artemis II\u00a0crew members\u00a0Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and\u00a0(CSA)\u00a0Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on\u00a0their record-setting journey\u00a0around the Moon and back.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Once it returns to the\u00a0VAB,\u00a0teams will continue to perform\u00a0additional\u00a0checkouts, inspections and data analysis and begin making repairs to the flame hole panels, elevators, pneumatic panels, and\u00a0umbilicals\u00a0that were damaged.\u00a0Application of lessons learned from Artemis I to harden and reinforce ground support equipment at the pad proved successful as the mobile launcher and launch pad sustained minimal damage\u00a0from the 8.8 million pounds of thrust\u00a0expelled at\u00a0booster ignition.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The mobile launcher is expected\u00a0to pause operations on Thursday\u00a0to\u00a0give ground teams an opportunity to rest, and\u00a0they will resume operations and\u00a0proceed\u00a0to the Vehicle Assembly Building\u00a0on Friday, April 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Follow the\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KQ3YB0woUbY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">livestream<\/a>\u202fof the mobile launcher on the move.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/cropped-toni-with-sls-300x300.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>April 16, 2026 8:33AM<\/p>\n<p>More from Missions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the conclusion of\u00a0NASA\u2019s\u00a0Artemis II\u00a0test flight, teams at\u00a0the agency\u2019s\u00a0Kennedy\u00a0Space Center in Florida\u00a0are shifting\u00a0focus to Artemis III, which is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[504,42142,178061,44992,178062,16569,79,193,54583,178063],"class_list":{"0":"post-589338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artemis","9":"tag-artemis-2","10":"tag-christina-h-koch","11":"tag-exploration-ground-systems","12":"tag-g-reid-wiseman","13":"tag-kennedy-space-center","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-space-launch-system-sls","17":"tag-victor-j-glover"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}