NASA's Orion project is moving toward the testing phase, as engineers work on finding the craft's correct launch configuration.
Orion remains on-schedule for a December flight that will send it 3,600 miles into space.
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The four-hour, unmanned flight will help engineers prepare the spacecraft for future journeys that will extend deeper into space.
"Now that we're getting so close to launch, the spacecraft completion work is visible every day,"
NASA's Orion Program Manager Mark Geyer said in a statement. "Orion's flight test will provide us with important data that will help us test out systems and further refine the design so we can safely send humans far into the solar system to uncover new scientific discoveries on future missions."
The plan is for Orion to orbit Earth twice, then re-enter the atmosphere at nearly 20,000 miles per hour before splashing in the Pacific Ocean via parachute. The research is intended to help the U.S.'s missions to Mars at some point in the next decade.
According to NASA, Orion's inaugural launch is scheduled to occur by the end of this year.
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