The Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is getting spruced up ahead of the Artemis moon missions.


NASA/Bill White

When NASA astronauts blast off to revisit the moon, they’ll be doing so in a spacecraft launched by a rocket built inside the historic Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And that building will be looking fine.

The Kennedy Space Center tweeted a video on Thursday of a massive repainting job going on outside the VAB. The building sports a 110-foot-tall classic NASA “meatball” logo and the world’s largest American flag, a 209-foot-tall behemoth of patriotism. Both are getting spiffed up with new paint.

“Every rocket that has taken a human beyond low Earth orbit has been assembled in this building. Soon NASA SLS will be inside being prepared for its first launch,” Kennedy tweeted. 

SLS is the Space Launch System, the powerful rocket that will escort astronauts back to the moon, a feat NASA hopes to achieve in 2024 through its Artemis program.

The video is a time lapse of paint crews working from the top of the meatball logo on down. It’s not a job for anyone who struggles with acrophobia. According to NASA, the VAB is one of the largest buildings in the world by area, covering eight acres, and it’s a healthy 525 feet tall.

The giant flag on the VAB is next in line for a refresh. It will take 500 gallons of paint to redo both images.

NASA’s moon plans are ambitious, so it’s not surprising the space agency would want the visuals on the VAB to be just as epic as its lunar return plans.