Early on the morning of Saturday January 17th, 2026, the next step to get humans back to the Moon, took place during the Artemis II rollout at Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida.
The SLS rocket that’s topped with the Orion capsule named Integrity slowly made its way out of the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) as the sun popped up over a cloudy horizon to make the up to 12 hour, 4.2 mile trip out to Space Launch Complex 39-B where NASA will send astronauts out toward the Moon for the first time since 1972 sometime early this year. Those four astronauts will travel farther from Earth than any humans have gone before as they will be going around our closest celestial neighbor before coming back home. This of course sets up the follow up Artemis III mission that will land humans on the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
Here’s a look at some of the images we captured this morning in the order they were taken.
