A ring and barrel recently loaded onto the Vertical Assembly Center at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The tool, one of the largest in the world, will join domes, rings and barrels to complete the tanks or dry structure assemblies for the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System. The tool also will perform nondestructive evaluation on the completed welds. These are the first confidence welds performed on the tool, which ensures it works as it is designed to do before welding actual flight hardware.
SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions, including to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars. The core stage, towering more than 200 feet tall (61 meters) with a diameter of 27.6 feet (8.4 meters), will store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will feed the vehicle’s RS-25 engines.
Image credit: NASA/Michoud