Photos: Orion launches at dawn

Kennedy Space Center officials said Tuesday that Hurricane Matthew knocked out the main cooling system for the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building and surrounding structures, but they expect no lingering effects from the storm on NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spaceship scheduled for their first full-scale test flight around the moon in 2018.

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.

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.