Video: Orion flight preps

Watch highlights from Orion’s Dec. 5 launch aboard a Delta 4-Heavy rocket as compiled for broadcast on NASA TV.

This is the first spacecraft that will carry humans on a mission to the Moon since 1972. The Artemis 2 mission is scheduled for no earlier than Feb. 5, 2026.

Astronauts will likely perform a previously-unplanned demonstration of the Orion spacecraft’s deep space rendezvous capabilities in a high-altitude orbit around Earth on the crew capsule’s first piloted test flight, now scheduled for 2023.