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

A model of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, in development to loft astronaut crews into deep space, was dropped from a U.S. Air Force cargo plane over Arizona on Wednesday in the latest in a series of tests to verify the capsule’s parachutes are up to the job of safely landing with humans on-board.

NASA managers have ruled out putting a crew on board an Orion capsule atop the agency’s huge Space Launch System rocket for the gargantuan booster’s maiden flight in 2019, citing technical risks and higher costs, up to as much as $900 million, agency officials said Friday.

A record number of would-be space travelers have applied to join NASA’s corps of astronauts to fly aboard the International Space Station, the Orion crew capsule, or commercial spaceships built by Boeing and SpaceX, the space agency announced Friday.