Video: Orion flight preps

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate panel Wednesday that a budget impasse and subsequent spending freeze later this year would be “devastating” to the agency’s goal of sending the first woman and next man to the moon by the end of 2024.

A countdown dress rehearsal and rocket fueling exercise was completed at Cape Canaveral for next month’s launch of NASA’s Orion crew module atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy booster.

The booster rocket that will launch NASA’s next-generation Orion space capsule on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise in December has been rolled to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.