File:MSFC_120619_SLS_Resource_Reel_0124

English: Together with four RS-25 engines, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket’s massive 212-foot-tall core stage — the largest stage NASA has ever built — and its twin solid rocket boosters will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send NASA’s Orion spacecraft, astronauts and supplies beyond Earth’s orbit to the Moon and, ultimately, Mars. The heavy-lift rocket that will launch the agency’s Artemis lunar missions will be the most powerful rocket ever built. Offering more payload mass, volume capability and energy to speed missions through space, the SLS rocket, along with NASA’s Gateway in lunar orbit and Orion, is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration and the Artemis lunar program. No other rocket is capable of carrying astronauts in Orion around the Moon in a single mission. Over the course of its development, the rocket has moved from design and manufacturing to testing and assembly and integration. With the first core stage for Artemis I, the first mission of SLS and Orion, f