Photos: Delta 4-Heavy launch gallery

Mike Sarafin, NASA’s lead Orion flight director, narrates animation depicting the Exploration Flight Test 1 from liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA, Lockheed Martin and United Launch Alliance officials hold the L-2 day countdown status briefing following the launch readiness review on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

Fully recovered from a computer hiccup that disrupted science observations this weekend, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will resume imaging of Pluto on Tuesday, a week before the plutonium-powered probe zooms less than 7,800 miles from the unexplored dwarf planet at the frontier of the solar system.