As a symbolic reminder of the historic occasion, a golden rod was transported to the launch pad with NASA's new moon-bound rocket on Tuesday (Aug. 16).
"We created a small memento," Cliff Lanham, senior vehicle operations manager for NASA's Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program at Kennedy, said in response to a question from collectSPACE.com. "We gave it to the crawler team, so they will be taking that out with them."
The Artemis 1 launch team passed the baton to the crew driving the crawler-transporter hauling the Space Launch System (SLS) booster and Orion spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Unlike the rocket, which was only going one direction, the rod was planned to return to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and then follow the mission from the ground.
On Tuesday, the crawler began its 4.2-mile journey to the pad. The rollout took 10 hours and 8 minutes and was accomplished at a maximum speed of 0.8 mph. The transporter will then return to the VAB to stack the SLS components and Orion.
Lanham handed the baton to Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the launch director, before the initial rollout. From the Launch Control Center (LCC), which is next to the VAB, she will monitor the Artemis 1 countdown.
Blackwell will receive a baton once more just before the launch, which might happen as early as Aug. 29. She will use it with her group of flight controllers in the LCC. The Orion capsule will be recovered from the Pacific Ocean after splashing down from the moon at the end of the mission by the NASA and U.S. Navy recovery team, who will receive it at that point.
The foot-long baton is adorned with lapel pins, five of which feature NASA, Orion, SLS, Exploration Ground Systems, and Artemis 1 emblems. A final pin is shaped like the SLS and is topped with Orion.
A small rock fragment found in the crawlerway from a prior rollout is also attached to the baton. Lanham, Blackwell-Thompson, and other members of the EGS and Artemis launch teams signed the metal rod.
"Like in a track relay, this handoff signifies the last leg of our assembling of the Artemis 1 SLS rocket, bringing us one step closer to launch," officials posted to NASA's Artemis Twitter account.
A brand-new tradition at NASA, the passing of the baton began with Artemis 1. However, it is reminiscent of other symbolic gestures made during earlier American missions, such as the exchanging of flags and banners during significant movements.
Kennedy Space Center's Orion, SLS, and ground systems will undergo their first comprehensive test as part of the Artemis 1 mission. Artemis 1 will serve as a crewless flight test, gathering information for upcoming missions that would carry astronauts to the moon and possibly Mars.
