Photos: Gantry rolled back to reveal Orion

Stephen Clark, Spaceflight Now’s editor, asked NASA’s acting administrator about the space agency’s commercial crew and Artemis programs during a one-on-one virtual interview Tuesday, April 20.

Astronauts will likely perform a previously-unplanned demonstration of the Orion spacecraft’s deep space rendezvous capabilities in a high-altitude orbit around Earth on the crew capsule’s first piloted test flight, now scheduled for 2023. 

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.