
NASA has delayed the first flight of its Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket and Orion crew capsule by over a year, to December 2019, an agency official said Nov. 9.While a recent NASA review made the case for an even longer delay, to June 2020, “the agency has chosen to manage to a December 2019 launch,” said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations. “This earlier launch date is reasonable and challenges the teams to stay…