Video: Orion flight preps

NASA is taking steps to rein in costs, emphasizing bonds with private sector companies, and signaling it might be open to a future where the agency’s flagship Orion deep space capsule and Space Launch System are no longer necessary to explore deep space, at least in their current forms.

Stephen Clark, Spaceflight Now’s editor, asked NASA’s acting administrator about the space agency’s commercial crew and Artemis programs during a one-on-one virtual interview Tuesday, April 20.

Completing a 2,700-mile journey across the United States, America’s inaugural Orion spaceship arrived back home at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, just under two weeks after its trial by fire.