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.

After assessing any damage to the spaceport caused by Hurricane Dorian as it narrowly missed Florida’s east coast, NASA says the Kennedy Space Center will reopen for normal operations Friday. Teams rolled the Space Launch System’s mobile launch platform from pad 39B back into the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building last week for safekeeping during the storm.

A record number of would-be space travelers have applied to join NASA’s corps of astronauts to fly aboard the International Space Station, the Orion crew capsule, or commercial spaceships built by Boeing and SpaceX, the space agency announced Friday.