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

The shipping container carrying the Orion heat shield for Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) is lowered by crane onto the flatbed of a transporter at the Shuttle Landing Facility, managed and operated by Space Florida, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The heat shield arrived aboard the agency’s Super Guppy aircraft from Lockheed Martin’s manufacturing facility near Denver. The heat shield will be transported to the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building 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.