Video: Orion EFT-1 test flight ends with a splashdown in the Pacific

The pace of the European Space Agency’s development of a power and propulsion module for NASA’s Orion crew capsule will likely determine when an unpiloted test flight of the spaceship and its heavy-lift rocket will take off, NASA officials said last week.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden speaks to Spaceflight Now’s Stephen Clark about the upcoming test flight of the Orion space capsule on the EFT-1 mission.

A recovery team stationed in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California secured NASA’s Orion spacecraft and winched it into the flooded well deck of a U.S. Navy transport ship after the capsule splashed down into the sea to wrap up a successful four-and-a-half hour test flight.