The space capsule that may one day take humans to the moon and Mars is ready for delivery to Kennedy Space Center.
Technicians at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans finished welding the final pieces of the Orion spacecraft.
Orion provides a sealed, pressurize environment for astronauts to live and travel in space – designed for deep space missions like trips to the moon.
After a final checkout, NASA will load the capsule into a wide-body cargo plane called the Super Guppy that will deliver it to Kennedy Space Center.
Arriving at KSC’s Operations and Checkout facility, technicians will test the welds and continue to assemble to spacecraft.
This Orion capsule is slated for an unmanned mission to the moon in 2018. Orion will travel to deep-space on top of the Space Launch System, NASA’s heavy-lift rocket.
