It has been a busy month at NASA as the Soyuz rocket prepares for take-off and Orion continues to get ready for the SLS launch.

The Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad by train on Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for Dec. 19 and will send Expedition 34/35 Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA, Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko and Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

Technicians prepare to fit a special fixture around an Orion capsule inside the high bay of the Operations & Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The fixture is designed to enable precise pre-launch processing of the Orion spacecraft.

Orion will be the most advanced spacecraft ever designed and carry astronauts farther into space than ever before. It will sustain astronauts during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space and emergency abort capability. Orion will be launched by NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration and expand human presence across the solar system.

Image Credit: NASA

For more information visit www.nasa.gov.