VAB

SpaceX is still working towards a new expanded Starship presence at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Part of that will be a massive new structure that will rival NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building on the space coast horizon, called GigaBay.

Earlier this month, NASA moved the SLS engine section for Artemis 3 into the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This comes as a distinct change from previous SLS core stages like the recently flown Artemis 1 and Artemis 2, which are still being assembled at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana. The biggest questions arising from this change are what NASA’s plan for Artemis 3 is and onwards and what stirred this sudden change.

Today NASA confirmed that it is prepared to support the rollout of the Space Launch System rocket from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B on March 17 at 5 p.m. EDT. The roll is expected to take around 11 hours from start to hard down at the pad. After years of waiting and delays, we are about to see this beast of a vehicle roll for the first time.