Video: Orion flight preps

The White House’s $19.9 billion NASA budget outline released Monday would continue development of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule and begin the deployment of a mini-space station around the moon as soon as 2022, but the proposal would cancel WFIRST, a flagship-class astronomy mission planned for launch in the mid-2020s.

Joining the live video podcast on Friday, April 5, are Emilee Speck, space journalist with FOX Weather, and Stephen Clark, space reporter with Ars Technica. The show begins at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 UTC) on the Spaceflight Now YouTube channel.

Fresh home from a high-flying test flight Friday that took it 3,600 miles above Earth, NASA’s Orion spacecraft was pulled off a U.S. Navy recovery ship Monday night for initial inspections before a cross-country trip to its home base in Florida.