Stennis Space Center
NASA propulsion test centre in Mississippi; holds four RS-25 engines for Artemis III, shipping to KSC by July 2026.
Last refreshed: 17 April 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
When do the Artemis III rocket engines leave Stennis for Kennedy Space Center?
Timeline for Stennis Space Center
Artemis III core stage ships Monday
Artemis II Moon MissionArtemis III capsule powered up at KSC
Artemis II Moon Mission- What is happening at Stennis Space Center for Artemis III?
- Four RS-25 core-stage engines are at Stennis Space Center and are scheduled to ship to Kennedy Space Center no later than July 2026 for integration with the Artemis III SLS core stage.Source: NASA
Background
Stennis Space Center is NASA's primary propulsion testing facility, located in Hancock County, Mississippi, near the Louisiana border. It is the site where all RS-25 Space Shuttle Main Engines were certified, and where the SLS core-stage engines are processed before integration. Four RS-25 core-stage engines for Artemis III are currently at Stennis and are scheduled to ship to Kennedy Space Center no later than July 2026 for integration with the SLS core stage arriving by barge from Michoud Assembly Facility.
Established in 1961, Stennis was built to test the Saturn V F-1 engines for Apollo. Its A and B test stands can test full-scale rocket engine clusters. The centre conducted the Green Run static-fire test of the Artemis I SLS core stage in 2021. Stennis employs roughly 5,000 civil servants and contractors from multiple agencies, including the US Navy and NOAA, making it a multi-tenant federal campus rather than a single-mission site.
The RS-25 engines flying on Artemis III are refurbished Space Shuttle main engines. Each costs approximately $146 million in its expendable configuration, as the SLS design Burns them on every flight rather than recovering them. This contributes significantly to the $4 billion per-flight cost of SLS.