Video: Orion flight preps

Lessons learned during preparations leading up to the first orbital test flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft in December have prompted engineers to recommend changing the design of the crew capsule’s heat shield for future missions to the moon, Mars, or an asteroid, according to Lockheed Martin officials.

The skeleton of NASA’s next Orion capsule, set for launch in late 2018 on a test flight to lunar orbit without astronauts, has passed a pressurization test at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.