Video: Orion flight preps

Get a preview of Thursday’s United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket flight in these video highlights packages from previous missions by the big booster for NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office from Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

A Canadian space flier will join three NASA crew members on the first piloted flight of the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft around the moon, becoming the first non-U.S. astronaut on a lunar voyage, officials announced last week.

NASA managers said Friday they hope to know within a month or so whether it might be feasible — or advisable — to put two astronauts on board the first test flight of a huge 322-foot-tall Space Launch System super booster scheduled for its maiden launch late next year.