Video: Orion flight highlights

The mobile platform intended to carry NASA’s Space Launch System will trek to the mega-rocket’s launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as Thursday, before heading inside the spaceport’s huge Vehicle Assembly Building for the first time next month.

The covert follow-on satellite program that will serve as a replacement to the nation’s surveillance “eyes” from space begins launching in 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The heavy-lift version of the United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket will sell for half the price of today’s Delta 4-Heavy and a third of the price tag for the previous Titan 4, while offering a substantial increase in performance for nation’s largest defense spacecraft.