Two Delta 4 rocket boosters were delivered to Cape Canaveral on March 4 for the Orion EFT-1 test flight. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett.
(Spaceflight now)
The first test flight of NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle has been delayed to early December to accommodate a U.S. military payload in United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 launch manifest, officials announced late Friday.
The unmanned Orion test flight was scheduled for launch in September or October aboard a Delta 4-Heavy rocket, the most powerful launcher in the U.S. fleet.
But NASA announced a delay Friday. A statement posted on the agency’s website said the delay will “support allowing more opportunities for launches this year.”
The Orion spacecraft is NASA’s next-generation crew vehicle designed to carry astronauts on expeditions beyond low Earth orbit aboard the Space Launch System, a government-owned heavy-lift launcher set to debut by the end of 2017.
The Orion test flight this year, known as Exploration Flight Test-1, will prove many of the spacecraft’s key systems, such as computers, software and the capsule’s 16.4-foot-diameter ablative heat shield.
The first crewed Orion mission is scheduled for launch on the second Space Launch System flight in 2021.
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