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

NASA civil servants and the agency’s contractor work force are bracing for high winds and rain from Hurricane Dorian, securing rocket stages, spacecraft assembly areas and even hauling a 6.7-million-pound mobile launch tower, designed for the huge rocket being built for the Artemis moon program, back to the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building for safekeeping.

SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship, carrying more than 4,100 pounds of cargo and research specimens, descended to a predawn splashdown Monday in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles, completing the first re-flight of one of SpaceX’s unpiloted supply ships to the International Space Station.

NASA’s inaugural Orion spaceship has set sail on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise around the Earth, leaving port atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket and its incandescent power at 7:05 a.m. EST on Dec. 5.