NASA Crews Place Final SLS Rocket Structural Test Article into M

This collection of photos shows the steps NASA engineers took to lift the final structural test article for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) core stage into Test Stand 4697 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, July 10, 2019. The liquid oxygen (LOX) tank is one of two propellant tanks in the rocket’s massive core stage that will produce more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help launch Artemis 1, the first flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and SLS, to the Moon. The nearly 70-foot-long liquid oxygen tank structural test article was manufactured at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and delivered by NASA’s barge Pegasus to Marshall. Once bolted into the test stand, dozens of hydraulic cylinders will push and pull the tank, subjecting it to the same stresses and forces it will endure during liftoff and flight, to verify it is fit for flight.