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

The four RS-25 engines at the bottom of NASA’s first Space Launch System core stage shut down about a minute into a ground test-firing Saturday that was supposed to last more than eight minutes.

NASA simulated an in-flight launch abort of an Orion crew capsule high above Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, in a major test of the safety system that would whisk astronauts on future moon missions away from a failing rocket.

Boosted to an altitude of 3,604 miles by a Delta 4 rocket, NASA’s Orion deep space exploration vehicle fell back to Earth Friday in the program’s maiden voyage, slamming into the atmosphere at nearly 20,000 mph, enduring a hellish 4,000-degree re-entry and settling to a Pacific Ocean splashdown to wrap up a critical unmanned test flight.