The pieces of NASA’s next 3 Artemis moon missions head to Florida launch site (photos)

Hardware is on the move for future NASA moon missions with astronauts.

Big pieces for both Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 hit the road in recent weeks as the missions, now set for 2025 and 2026, respectively, continue to assemble key hardware ahead of their lunar launches.

Artemis 2 aims to send four astronauts around the moon, while Artemis 3 will be the first crewed lunar-landing mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. The NASA-led Artemis program has dozens of international partners, with the Artemis Accords aiming to build a long-term presence on the lunar surface to prepare for future Mars and interplanetary missions.

Artemis 2’s launch vehicle stage adapter rolled out of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama on Aug. 21 to make the long journey to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, the mission’s launch site. It’s a key piece of hardware for the powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designed to send humans and cargo on interplanetary missions.

Related: NASA rolls giant Artemis 2 moon rocket core off the factory floor for astronaut mission (video)

“The cone-shaped launch vehicle stage adapter connects the rocket’s core stage to the upper stage and helps protect the upper stage’s engine that will help propel the Artemis 2 test flight,” NASA officials wrote in a caption for one of the photos.

The adapter was mounted on the agency’s Pegasus barge, which planned to make a pit stop before Florida on a journey that will take several weeks. The barge will first motor to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, “where crews will pick up additional SLS hardware for future Artemis missions,” the agency wrote.

The hardware will include pieces for the Artemis 2, 3 and 4 missions, NASA’s SLS X account noted on Aug. 29.

Pegasus isn’t the only big ship bound for KSC with Artemis hardware on board. A European service module is shipping by sea from Bremen, Germany (where it has been since October 2020) for an arrival almost two weeks later near KSC, the European Space Agency wrote on Aug. 22. The module was originally built in Turin, Italy using pieces from 20 different nations.

The ship, called the Canopée, should arrive at the American space center in early September. The service module on board is key for the Orion spacecraft that will carry Artemis astronauts: It “provides astronauts with essential resources including electricity, water, temperature control and air,” ESA officials added.

ESA has already shipped two service modules before this: one that flew around the moon and back with Orion on Artemis 1 in 2022, and another for Artemis 2 that is now in testing for that mission’s launch.

“Once the European service module arrives at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, engineers will connect it to the crew module adapter and later to the crew module itself, with plenty of testing before, in between and after to get the spacecraft ready ahead of the Artemis 3 mission,” ESA added.