Teams at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans lift the aft dome for the liquid oxygen tank into the Vertical Assembly Center on May 11. The flight hardware will form part of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s core stage for the Artemis IV mission. The aft dome is the final piece to complete the liquid oxygen tank structure. Inside the vertical assembly center – one of the largest friction-stir weld tools in the world – NASA and Boeing, SLS core stage prime contractor, will perform a circumferential weld to join the dome to the previously welded forward dome and two barrel structures to form the full liquid oxygen tank structure. 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 at its base, produces 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. Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker