Artemis III Liquid Oxygen Tank Prepares for Forward Join

Move crews at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans move the liquid oxygen tank for the core stage of the agency’s Artemis III mission into the facility’s vertical assembly building on Nov.3. Eventually, teams with SLS (Space Launch System) prime contractor, Boeing, will lift the tank into the production cell currently housing the intertank and mate the flight hardware together before capping them off with the forward skirt to complete the core stage forward join.   The propellant tank is one of five major elements that make up the 212-foot-tall rocket stage. The core stage, along with its four RS-25 engines, produce more than two million pounds of thrust to help launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and supplies beyond Earth’s orbit and to the lunar surface for Artemis.