Man working on a water tank for the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center.

Friction-stir-weld tool for wet and dry structures on the Space Launch System (SLS) core stage. It will weld barrel panels together to produce whole barrels for the two pressurized tanks, the intertank, the forward skirt and the aft engine section.

More Info: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/

Inside the Vertical Weld Center. The friction-stir-weld tool for wet and dry structures on the Space Launch System (SLS) core stage. It will weld barrel panels together to produce whole barrels for the two pressurized tanks, the intertank, the forward skirt and the aft engine section.

More Info: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/

Inside NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, the Vertical Weld Center is shown — a precision friction-stir welding system used to join the massive aluminum alloy panels that form rocket fuel tanks and core stages for the Space Launch System. The bright blue and yellow structures are part of the tooling system that ensures millimeter-level accuracy during assembly, critical for the Artemis program’s deep space missions.

A bright blue and yellow tooling structure dominates this section of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Built by Ascent Aerospace’s Global Tooling Systems division, this heavy-duty platform is part of the specialized infrastructure used to assemble components of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The steel frame supports massive cylindrical sections during alignment and welding, forming part of the precision manufacturing ecosystem that enables Artemis missions to take shape from the ground up.