— NASA's "white room" has just gained a bit of color.

The environmental enclosure that is typically painted all white — hence, in part, its name — has been adorned with the red, blue and silver Artemis program logo on one side of its exterior. The white room, which is mounted at the end of the 60-foot-long (18-meter) crew access arm atop the mobile launcher, is the astronauts' last stop before climbing into their spacecraft to launch.

Earlier this month, it was a different type of crew working about 300 feet (90 meters) off the ground. On Dec. 4, mechanical engineering techs Sean McCrary and Katie Mortensen added the five-sided logo on the white room's exterior in preparation for its use by NASA's first astronauts to fly to the moon in more than 50 years.

Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch of NASA will join Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen for a 10-day flight around the moon while checking out the control and life support systems aboard their Orion capsule "Integrity." Targeted to launch as soon as February 2026, the mission will also see the astronauts become the first to fly atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket after being the first to use the white room.

"It is given that name not only because it's painted white, but also because it's kept clean to avoid contaminants entering the spacecraft prior to flight," read a NASA description. "The crew access arm is designed to rotate from its retracted position and line up with Orion's crew hatch."

While the crew will not be able to see the Artemis logo from inside the enclosure, the millions of spectators who gather to watch the launch in-person, on TV and on the internet will have a clear view of the symbol as the SLS lifts off for the moon. The logo, which NASA introduced in 2019 during its 50th anniversary celebration of the Apollo 11 first moon landing, incorporates the stylized "A" from the Apollo program logo.

McCrary and Mortensen were supported while painting by scaffolding that was erected on one of the highest support platforms in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The logo was added after NASA completed stacking the SLS and Orion for the Artemis II mission (as well as adding its own specially-painted logos).

The Artemis II SLS, atop the mobile launcher, is expected to roll out to Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy in mid-January.

Earlier programs' white rooms — Gemini from 1963 through 1965, Apollo from 1967 to 1972 and the space shuttle from 1981 to 2011 — did not feature any type of decoration on their exterior.