Orion EM-1 Heat Shield Offload, Transport, and Lift

A flatbed truck with the shipping container carrying the Orion heat shield for Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) backs into the low bay at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The heat shield arrived aboard the agency’s Super Guppy aircraft at the Shuttle Landing Facility, managed and operated by Space Florida, from Lockheed Martin’s manufacturing facility near Denver. The heat shield will be offloaded and moved into the high bay for processing. The Orion spacecraft will launch atop NASA’s Space Launch System rocket on EM-1, an uncrewed test flight, in 2018.