Blocks all stacked for NASA's future Artemis tower at KSC

Miami Herald

22-07-2025

There's still more than a year's worth of work to do on NASA's future Artemis launch tower at Kennedy Space Center, but all of the big pieces have been put in place.
The last of seven modular steel blocks that make up the bulk of the tower's height was put into place on July 2 by the tower's contractor Bechtel.
The block called Mod 10 brings it to 377 feet tall from the base structure.
"This achievement underscores our ongoing partnership with NASA and local unions, and the team's steady progress toward safe delivery of this critical infrastructure," the company said in an emailed statement.
Progress has been tracked on the company's website with the latest addition dubbed "Reaching the Top."
Mod 4 was the first of the seven blocks put in place on Jan. 3, growing the structure 272 feet in less than six months. Mod 10 will support the Crew Access Arm for ML-2, which is among the parts that have yet to be assembled before the company's deadline of November 2026 for delivery to NASA.
ML-2 is designed for use on a larger version of NASA's Space Launch System rocket, which won't fly until at least the Artemis IV mission on NASA's roadmap in late 2028.
The first three Artemis missions have or will use the ML-1, which was converted from use from NASA's defunct Constellation program.
Artemis I was the first launch of SLS, an uncrewed test flight that sent Orion out to the moon and back. Artemis II will be the first crewed flight of Orion, looking to send four astronauts on a trip around the moon without landing no later than April 2026.
Artemis III looks to return humans to the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. That mission, which is reliant on the completion of SpaceX's in-development Starship as a human landing system as well as new spacesuits from Axiom Space, is targeting launch by summer 2027.
Whether or not ML-2 would ever be used was in question as President Donald Trump's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 sought to end the SLS rocket program as well as the Orion spacecraft, Gateway lunar space station and NASA's Exploration Ground Systems team based at KSC after the flight of Artemis III.
But Congress, led by an effort from Sen. Ted Cruz, was able add more than $10 billion in this year's "Big, Beautiful Bill" to save SLS for both the fourth and fifth launches of Artemis as well as set aside money for Orion and Gateway.
Both versions of the Senate and House budget bills for 2026, moreover, look to keep funding for Artemis' existing programs in place. Congress is the ultimate decider of what the federal budget will look like, although without an agreement, it's possible NASA will simply continue with funding based on current levels with continuing resolutions.
Still, with funds already set aside, work continued in earnest to get ML-2 ready for the fourth Artemis flight.
It's supposed to fly the first part of the Gateway station, and would use the larger version of SLS called the Block 1B that has more payload capacity. It too would feature a rendezvous and moon landing with Starship. The Artemis V mission is supposed to be the first flight to use Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander instead of Starship.
NASA will still need to perform about a year's worth of tests and added work after Bechtel hands it off in 2026.
The ML2 project, which was initially a $383 million contract awarded in 2019, had an original delivery date of 2023. A NASA Office of Inspector General audit released in August 2024 said the costs had already nearly tripled to more than $1 billion with the delivery date pushed into late 2026.
It's part of the growing costs and delays associated with all facets of the Artemis program. In 2023, the OIG said by the time Artemis III flies, the program will have topped $93 billion in costs since it was originally announced in 2012.
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