Jeremy Hansen excited to see the Artemis II rocket taking shape

Uploaded on February 17, 2025

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Jeremy Hansen excited to see the Artemis II rocket taking shape

CSA astronauts Jeremy Hansen and Jenni Gibbons, along with the rest of their Artemis II crewmates, had the chance to view segments of the SLS rocket, as well as the Orion capsule that will take the prime crew around the Moon. Jeremy shares his excitement live from the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

I’m standing here in front of the core stage of the Artemis II vehicle that is going to take my crewmates and I around the Moon in April of 2026, which is pretty, pretty cool. I'm in the Vehicle Assembly Building here at the Kennedy Space Center. It's been quite a day.

This core stage was in here last time I visited, but it was horizontal. Now it's been lifted into this new framework behind me, so they could finish the integration on the vehicle before it goes over and gets stacked on the mobile launcher.

So behind you and the camera is where the solid rocket boosters are being stacked. Right now, first two are already on there. They're stacking the segments as we go along.

This morning, I was over in the building where they're putting Orion together. So they're closing up panels. They finished some of the work on the batteries.

They finished the testing in the vacuum chamber, and they're moving forward on all that.

So it's pretty electric here. Starting to see this vehicle come to fruition, to see the hardware coming together, meeting in this historic building where the Saturn Vs were built to go to the Moon, and to think about what we'll be climbing aboard in a little over a year to leave planet Earth, head out to the Moon, and share some extraordinary perspectives with humanity as we view our planet from the perspective of the Moon.

So just wanted to share some of my excitement being here today and seeing this.

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