NASA Administrator speaks about Orion test flight

A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket powered off its launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, on Feb. 20 with a Cygnus supply ship heading for the International Space Station.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made a historic New Year’s encounter with an object nicknamed Ultima Thule in the Kuiper Belt a billion miles beyond Pluto. The NASA space probe passed Ultima Thule at a distance of around 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) on Jan. 1, making it the most distant planetary body ever explored up close.

United Launch Alliance teams rolled the Mobile Service Tower away from a Delta 4-Heavy rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 37B launch pad Wednesday in preparation for liftoff on a national security mission.