Administrator Surveys Orion

2015-1019
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, center, looks at the heat shield of Orion as Kelvin Manning, associate director of Kennedy Space Center, left, and Jules Schneider accompany him. Photo credits: NASA/Cory Huston

2015-1020NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden looked over the agency’s Orion spacecraft this morning for the first time since it returned to Kennedy Space Center following the successful Orion flight test on Dec. 5. Bearing the marks of a spacecraft that has returned to Earth through a searing plunge into the atmosphere, Orion is perched on a pedestal inside the Launch Abort System Facility at Kennedy where it is going through post-mission processing. Although the spacecraft Bolden looked over did not fly with a crew aboard during the flight test, Orion is designed to carry astronauts into deep space in the future setting NASA and the nation firmly on the journey to Mars.