NASA astronaut Rex Walheim excited about Orion test flight

Giving every opportunity for the storm clouds to blow clear after a four-hour hold, the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket counts down Thursday afternoon at Cape Canaveral until the clocks had to be halted for the day.

The man in charge of the Orion crew capsule program at Lockheed Martin is a lifelong veteran of the space program, beginning his tenure at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the late 1970s before taking posts in Washington and joining Lockheed Martin to lead the company’s work on the nation’s new spacecraft for journeys beyond Earth orbit.

Fresh home from a high-flying test flight Friday that took it 3,600 miles above Earth, NASA’s Orion spacecraft was pulled off a U.S. Navy recovery ship Monday night for initial inspections before a cross-country trip to its home base in Florida.