KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL –  Last than a day after the core stage for NASA’s Artemis III rocket arrived on a barge at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, I was interviewed live on Fox 35 Orlando, today, April 28, by the world famous Countdown Clock in Florida, to explain what we know so far  after the huge orange propellant tank was offloaded and transported to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for further processing and stacking

Watch my complete live interview on Fox 35 Orlando here at these links:

https://www.fox35orlando.com/video/fmc-hub2nuctgfk03hcj

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xFG5YY1oeI

Caption: NASA’s Artemis III core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center on April 27, 2026. The core stage for NASA’s Artemis III rocket has arrived on a barge to be taken to the vehicle assembly building on April 28, 2026 at Kennedy Space Center. Ken Kremer, Managing Editor with Space UpClose, joined FOX 35’s Garrett Wymer live over Zoom to break down what we know so far.

I watched the entire core stage offloading process during the day, Tuesday, April 28 as a member of the invited media at the KSC Press site

Enjoy our photos taken by Ken Kremer for Space UpClose

Offloading of the Artemis III core stage resting atop a transporter from NASA’s Pegasus began at around 8 a.m. ET, April 28, on the grounds of the KSC press site

My live Fox 35 Orlando interview took place shortly after completion of the transport of the Artemis III core stage from Pegasus to the transfer aisle inside the Vehicle Assembly Building

Fox 35 featured several of my photos of the core stage movement

We also discussed the results known to date about the Artemis II heat shield and how it compares very favorable to Artemis I and the changes NASA made to the reentry trajectory to minimize charring and char loss

The SLS (Space Launch System) core stage traveled 900 miles on the Pegasus barge from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans where the stage is manufactured, to complete assembly of the massive rocket at NASA Kennedy.

Teams offloaded the top four-fifths of the 212-foot-long core stage, the section containing the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt, on Tuesday, April 28 to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building.

Inside the VAB it will be joined to the previously delivered boat-tail and engine section in the facility’s High Bay 2 for outfitting and vertical integration to complete the full stage.

Artemis III will launch crew aboard the Orion spacecraft on top of the SLS rocket to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and one or both of the commercial lunar landing spacecraft from SpaceX and /or Blue Origin needed to land astronauts on the Moon as soon as late 2027.

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