Video: Orion flight preps

NASA’s inaugural Orion spaceship has set sail on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise around the Earth, leaving port atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket and its incandescent power at 7:05 a.m. EST on Dec. 5.

NASA’s heavy-lifting mega-rocket and its ground support systems at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will not be ready for launches until at least mid-2018, even with extra funding approved by Congress, the space agency’s senior human spaceflight official told lawmakers.

NASA ground crews at the Kennedy Space Center are continuing to stack segments of the Space Launch System’s side-mounted solid rocket boosters on a mobile launch platform inside the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building.