NASA updates Artemis II status, Gateway and Starship plans, and Boeing updates SLS stage builds

NASA and its Artemis contractors provided a little more color about the Artemis II schedule this past week, which helped contextualize the ongoing SLS solid rocket booster stacking in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. Imagery was provided by NASA public affairs of the seventh of the ten segments being lifted into place on the Mobile Launcher in the last week of January, and now we're hearing that Orion may be ready for launch processing in April.
I review the latest solid rocket motor segment to be stacked and the schedule hints in this video, along with updates I got from Boeing about upcoming milestones for the SLS stages they are building for Artemis III and IV. There were also few other Artemis news items from the same trade show panels where the Artemis II news came from, a rare Dragon XL note and a couple of details about the Starship HLS uncrewed lunar ascent demonstration.
And on top of that NASA and ISS took a turn in the political news cycle this week, which wasn't directly connected to Artemis...but we're wondering how much longer it will be before the circus comes for Artemis.
Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.
News articles cited:
spacenews.com/...
00:00 Intro
00:59 Artemis II stacking update and schedule hints
06:20 SLS Stages production updates from Boeing
15:15 Other news and notes
16:16 Dragon XL and Starship lunar ascent demo notes
18:02 Belated notice that RS-25 restart completed design certification
18:52 Thanks for watching!