NASA Completed Welding of Artemis III Core Stage Tank Dome

Teams completed the welding of the Artemis III core stage liquid oxygen tank dome at the NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Crews moved the dome, which is the top of the tank. The dome was moved to an assembly area where it will be loaded into a robotic welder that will join it with the forward barrel to create half of the liquid oxygen tank. Later another barrel and dome will be added to complete the entire tank. The Space Launch System (SLS) core stage liquid oxygen tank holds 196,000 gallons of super-cooled liquid propellant that serves as one of the propellants for the four RS-25 engines. The SLS core stage is made up of five unique elements: the forward skirt, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, liquid hydrogen tank, and the engine section. The liquid oxygen and the liquid hydrogen tank will provide propellant to the four RS-25 engines to produce more than two million pounds of thrust to help launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and supplies beyond Earth’s orbit to the Moon.