Image of the Day: 6/10/14

(Photo Credit: NASA/Cory Huston)

The launch abort system for NASA’s Orion spacecraft is lowered by crane into the vehicle during installation at the Kennedy Space Centre.

Orion’s Delta IV heavy rocket rolls to the launchpad ahead of test flight

(The rocket that will send NASA’s Orion spacecraft on its first flight test in its vertical launch position at Cape Canaveral – Photo Credit : NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis)

The rocket that will propel NASA’s Orion spacecraft 3,600 miles above Earth and into space during Exploration Flight Test-1 has now rolled out of the Horizontal Integration Facility near Space Launch Complex 37 and has made the trek to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

Reusable SpaceX rocket explodes during test flight

(A still from a video that captured the explosion – Photo Credit: Youtube)

On August 22nd, an unmanned SpaceX rocket exploded in mid air after it launched from the company’s development site in Texas. During the test flight, the three-engine version of the Falcon 9 rocket detected an anomaly which forced the flight termination system to automatically end the mission and destroy the craft.

NASA judge LDSD test flight a success, despite parachute failure

(LDSD being recovered from the ocean – Photo Credit: NASA/JPL – Caltech)

The first test flight of NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) has been deemed a success, despite the craft suffering a ‘hard landing’ in the ocean when its descent parachute failed to fully deploy.