NASA’s Artemis 2 rocket will sport decals to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary

NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is getting closer and closer, being just over a month away, and that means the rocket is getting ready for launch. The Space Launch System received some special decal work for its launch in February; “America 250” can be seen in a recent NASA picture on both the rocket’s boosters.

During Artemis 1, NASA gave the rocket’s booster some character with the addition of the NASA Worm logo on its side. That trend is continuing with Artemis, as NASA photos show the beloved logo largely painted on the side of both the left and right SLS boosters.

That won’t be all for Artemis 2. Thanks to several program delays during the program’s existence, Artemis 2 is planned to fly during America’s 25th anniversary.

During 2026, there are plenty of activities starting to be planned for the celebration, including a state vs. state games announced by President Trump and regular projections on the Washington Monument in the nation’s capital.

NASA isn’t getting left out; the agency painted the official “America 250” logo on both boosters, near the top, where it will be proudly seen from any angle.

Originally, the SLS rocket was planned to be rather bland in its design. At its conception, it was initially rendered as having the classic all-white with black ascent design, but like the Space Shuttle, that paint job was removed to save weight. This gives us its now recognizable orange look from the Core Stage’s insulation.

That has left each booster to become the de facto billboard for NASA to show special designs and sprawl the agency’s logo across it.

Artemis 2’s launch date is currently slated for February 6. However, the window extends into late June, and given SLS and the Space Shuttle’s (of which SLS is based) history of rocky launch attempts, expect delays to arise as the date gets closer.

The crew of Artemis 2, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will conduct a crewed flight test of the SLS and Orion spacecraft on a flight around the Moon, similar to the Apollo 8 mission back in the 1960s.