Successful Launch of Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Test Flight

After a short delay, the first test flight of the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle successfully launched at 7:05am ET this morning! Woohoo! The impressive Delta IV Heavy rocket looks oddly flat and intimidating because the engines are all arranged in a row and not in a triangle - it's like a wall or row of silos 236 ft tall shooting up into the sky.

Orion has been a long time coming, here is a photo of the Orion training mockup from my trip to the Johnson Space Center exactly two years ago in December 2012:

My 2012 photo of the Orion training mockup at the Johnson Space Center

If you didn't see the launch live, here is the video on YouTube: