Announcing huge progress made! A team prepares a robot – the yellow machine attached to the liquid hydrogen tank for the Space Launch System rocket -- for friction plug welding at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Friction plug welding is a technique developed by engineers at NASA_Marshall. It uses a robot to fill holes left after the tank goes through assembly in a larger robotic welder. The liquid hydrogen tank, along with a liquid oxygen tank, will provide 733,000 gallons of fuel for the first integrated mission of SLS with NASA's Orion spacecraft in 2018. Credit: NASA/Michoud/Steve Seipel #NASA #SLS #NOLA #Michoud #journeytoMars