The Operations and Checkout Building is lowered toward the service module for the Orion spacecraft.

Inside the Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a lifting crane is lowered toward the service module for the Orion spacecraft. The service module will be transferred from the tooling stand onto a lift station where it will be mated to the spacecraft adapter cone.

Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. The first unpiloted test flight of the Orion is scheduled to launch in 2014 atop a Delta IV rocket and in 2017 on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/orion. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann