Video: Orion flight preps

NASA has announced two veteran space shuttle engineers have taken charge of space agency’s Space Launch System and Orion deep space exploration projects after their previous managers both took the No. 2 jobs at space centers in Alabama and Texas.

Despite protests from Texas lawmakers, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will manage the agency’s plans to build a lunar landing system that will carry the next man and the first woman to the surface of the moon in 2024, agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Friday.

The Orion spacecraft sits inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida awaiting its rollout to the launch pad Monday night. The spacecraft will be moved to Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for its flight test, flying aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket.