NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Rolls out to Launch Pad for its First Flight

The Orion spacecraft sits inside the Launch Abort System Facility
at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 4, 2014
 Image Credit: NASA/Jim Grossman

NASA’s Orion spacecraft is set to roll out of the Launch Abort System Facility (LASF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to its launch pad at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37 on Monday Nov. 10, in preparation for lift off next month on its first space flight. 

The move is the latest major milestone ahead of the launch of this first flight test which will be flown without a crew. Orion is in the final stages of preparation for its uncrewed flight test, targeted for Dec. 4, that will take it 3,600 miles above Earth on a more than four hour flight to test many of the systems critical for future human missions into deep space.

After two orbits and 60,000 miles, Orion will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at almost 20,000 mph before its parachute system deploys to slow the spacecraft for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. On future missions, the Orion spacecraft will help carry astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before, including to an asteroid and Mars. For more information about Orion, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/orion