NASA Artemis III Moon Rocket Liquid Oxygen Tank for Core Stage | NASA Michoud

NASA Artemis III Moon Rocket Liquid Oxygen Tank for Core Stage | NASA Michoud

Move crews at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, move the liquid oxygen tank for the core stage of the agency’s Artemis III mission into the facility’s vertical assembly building on Nov. 3, 2025. Teams with Space Launch System (SLS) prime contractor, Boeing, later lifted the tank into the production cell currently housing the intertank to mate the flight hardware together before capping them off with the forward skirt to complete the core stage forward join.

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, produce 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.

Over the course of about 30 days, the Artemis III astronauts will travel to lunar orbit, where two crew members will descend to the surface and spend approximately a week near the South Pole of the Moon conducting new science before returning to lunar orbit to join their crew for the journey back to Earth. Launch is currently scheduled for mid-2027.

Follow updates on the Artemis blog: 
https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS)
https://www.nasa.gov/sls

NASA's Artemis III Mission:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/

Read the Artemis Plan (74-page PDF Free Download): 
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/artemis_plan-20200921.pdf

NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF)
https://www.nasa.gov/michoud-assembly-facility/

Image Credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker
Date: Nov. 3, 2025

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