Video: Orion flight preps

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.

On its second flight, SpaceX’s mammoth Falcon Heavy rocket hurled an Arabsat communications satellite the size of a school bus nearly one-quarter the way to the moon Thursday, days after NASA’s administrator identified the privately-developed rocket as a backup to the agency’s behind-schedule Space Launch System for sending astronauts back to the lunar surface.

Kathy Lueders, NASA’s newly appointed head of human spaceflight operations, said Thursday that without a crystal ball, she could not give a yes-or-no answer when asked whether she believes NASA can put astronauts back on the moon by the end of 2024 as called for by the Trump administration.