Historic Engines Take Their Place on Artemis III

On Aug. 24, technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida began installing the four RS-25 engines in the core stage of the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will carry the Artemis III crew into low Earth orbit in 2027.

Each RS-25 engine has a unique serial number that records its detailed flight history. The four engines assigned to Artemis III - E2054, E2057, E2048, and E2052 - previously powered multiple space shuttle missions. Engine 2048 helped launch NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik's earlier mission aboard space shuttle Atlantis during STS-129. It also flew on Space Shuttle Discovery during STS-95 in 1998, the mission that returned 77-year-old space pioneer U.S. Sen. John Glenn to orbit, making him the oldest person to fly in space at that time.