When NASA launches astronauts to step foot on the moon in 2028, A New Orleans rocket will send them there. 

“We don’t get to the moon without coming through New Orleans. There’s no negotiation on that,” said Chandler Sheuermann, NASA Space Launch System production manager.

The core stage, the biggest section of the rocket, for NASA’s mission Artemis III was built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and was shipped off to Florida Monday to continue its assembly. It is set to launch mid-2027, according to NASA officials, who also say we are on track to land on the moon by 2028. 

Michoud has been a part of the space program for over 60 years and has been building all the vehicles used to get to the moon since the Apollo missions, according to Sheuermann. He added that the goal is to reduce the time it takes to make the core stage part of the rocket. 

Scheuermann said that he wants all New Orleanians to understand the significance of the work done at Michoud. He said he hopes the Artemis II mission, which sent people deeper into space than ever before earlier this year, caught people’s attention and showed the facility’s role in getting humanity back to the moon. 

“We do great work here, and I think that those familiar with NASA, everybody knows Kennedy Space Center, and Johnson Space Center, but even a lot of New Orleanians don’t necessarily know what we do out here in Michoud,” he said. 

2028 moon landing

NASA Artemis Program Manager Lori Glaze said that they are working with their partners SpaceX and Blue Origin to make sure the human landing systems will be ready by 2028. 

“We’ve been working with them since the last fall on accelerating their plans to make sure that we have set the right requirements that allow us to meet that deadline to land in 2028,” Glaze said. 

According to Glaze, the first step in getting a crew to the surface of the moon is being able to transfer them from the Orion spacecraft into the lander, the spacecraft that is designed to land on the surface of the moon.

“This is something that has never been done before between these two particular systems,” Glaze said. “We have tested it out to make sure that the hardware fits, but actually being able to do that docking in space and then be able to transfer the crew back and forth through that hatch is going to be critical.”

Chris Cianciola, space launch system deputy program manager, and Terry Prickett, space launch system core stage chief engineer, both said that each Artemis mission has served a different goal in the trajectory of the final goal of landing and retaining human life on the moon. 

“Where we are going with Artemis is a permanent presence in space. Which is huge for humanity,” Cianciola said. 

“For Artemis III and the plans that we have to exercise the machines in our processes in lower orbit, that’s just another step or a long-term goal of landing astronauts on the surface of the moon,” Prickett said.

NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya wants to produce machinery faster than once a year. 

“I mean, this facility has an amazing capacity, the tools that are here are good to go. What we struggle with the most is getting the high-quality parts that we need to actually get to assemble the machine the right way,” Kshatriya said. “Right now, our biggest challenge is getting material into the factory, not making the factory go faster.” 

The Building of Artemis 

The core stage is the work of about 300 people and three years of labor, according to Sheuermann. 

Cianciola says that the first step of building the core stage is a “robust” design. 

“You know your margins, and you test in the environments you’re going to fly. Obviously, you want the rocket to be as light as you can, so we are trying to be razor thin,” Cianciola said. 

The core stage is also the biggest part of the rocket, according to Prickett. NASA Astronaut Nichole Ayers spoke about trusting that the vehicle will get you to the moon and back safely. 

“It [the rocket] stays here, and I get to meet everybody and put faces to names and meet the quality engineers and the test engineer. It’s about the relationship and the humans behind the flight,” Ayers said. “So it’s easy to trust these guys because they’re professional and they work with integrity and they speak up when they’re not comfortable about things and they speak up when we need to pause.” 

Ayers said that human space flight is the greatest team sport humans have, and collaboration is vital to the success of the missions. 

Why Artemis matters 

Sheuermann said that the Artemis missions excite him because it’s a chance to bring people together in hard times. 

“There’s a lot of challenging stuff in the world today that is challenging for a lot of people, and this is something that I think everybody, whether you are American or international, it doesn’t matter, is something that we can all look at and come together and say, that’s a good thing,” Sheuermann said.

For Kshatriya there’s multiple positives that come out of each Artemis mission. 

“For me, it’s another amazing reason why we do these missions. It’s because it motivates the American supply chain in ways and brings back incredible jobs and capabilities in communities that, you know, 30, 40 years ago they went away,” Kshatriya said.

Prickett highlighted the ways that space exploration is good for mankind as a whole. 

“To go to the moon, you have challenges that you have to overcome, and as you work your way through that, you develop new technology and new methods to make that possible.

So it benefits all of mankind to develop those technologies,” Prickett said.