![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2017\/08\/tanks_for_the_lift\/17107350-1-eng-GB\/Tanks_for_the_lift_small.jpg\")
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\nNASA\u2019s powerful Space Launch System rocket is a few steps closer to launching the Orion spacecraft now that its liquid propellant tanks are ready for testing.\n<\/p>\n
\nAssembled by the world\u2019s largest robotic rocket welder at NASA\u2019s Michoud facility in New Orleans, USA, the liquid oxygen tank seen here is ready for qualification, while the remaining three tanks are being processed.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe tanks must prove they can do exactly what they were designed to do as well as pass structural testing. At NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, they will be strapped to the engines and fired to check their performance under launch conditions.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe liquid oxygen and hydrogen tanks hold over 2.6 million litres of propellant to power the rocket\u2019s core stage that is comprised of four RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters.\n<\/p>\n
\nEvery bit of that thrust will be needed to propel the Orion spacecraft beyond low orbit to the Moon and beyond, for which ESA is contributing the European Service Module<\/a> (ESM).\n<\/p>\n \nOnce in orbit, the ESM will provide the spacecraft with electricity, water, oxygen and nitrogen as well as temperature control. A propulsion qualification module is being tested at the White Sands Test Facility in the US<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \nNASA\u2019s uncrewed Exploration Mission-1 will be launched from the historic pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, sending Orion some 70 000 km beyond the Moon before it returns to Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \nNASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket is a few steps closer to launching the Orion spacecraft now that its liquid propellant tanks are ready for testing.\n<\/p>\n \nAssembled by the world’s largest robotic rocket welder at NASA’s Michoud facility in New Orleans, USA, the liquid oxygen tank seen here is ready for qualification, while the remaining three tanks are being processed.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tanks must prove they can do exactly what they were designed to do as well as pass structural testing. At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, they will be strapped to the engines and fired to check their performance under launch conditions.\n<\/p>\n \nThe liquid oxygen and hydrogen tanks hold over 2.6 million litres of propellant to power the rocket’s core stage that is comprised of four RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters.\n<\/p>\n \nEvery bit of that thrust will be needed to propel the Orion spacecraft beyond low orbit to the Moon and beyond, for which ESA is contributing the European Service Module<\/a> (ESM).\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n