The United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifts off with NASA’s Orion spacecraft on its inaugural space flight test at 7:05 a.m. EST Dec. 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Complex 37.
NASA announced Monday it will order at least six reusable Orion crew capsules from Lockheed Martin for $4.6 billion to fly astronauts to the vicinity of the moon in the 2020s, and the agency said it plans to purchase hardware for up to 12 Orion vehicles by 2030.
The skeleton of NASA’s next Orion capsule, set for launch in late 2018 on a test flight to lunar orbit without astronauts, has passed a pressurization test at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Engineers plan to redesign part of the Orion capsule’s self-righting flotation system that only partially engaged as the spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean following an orbital test flight in December, NASA officials said.