Video: Learn about the Orion flight test launching in December

The booster rocket that will launch NASA’s next-generation Orion space capsule on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise in December has been rolled to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

A dramatic automatic abort 7.5 seconds before the planned liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket Saturday night kept the towering launcher on the pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, with a top secret spy payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

NASA simulated an in-flight launch abort of an Orion crew capsule high above Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, in a major test of the safety system that would whisk astronauts on future moon missions away from a failing rocket.