To the Moon and Beyond: Airbus Delivers Powerhouse for NASA’s Orion Spacecraft

In this handout provided by NASA,The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with NASA's Orion spacecraft mounted atop, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 37 at 7:05 a.m. EST in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Dec. 5, 2014. Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images

BERLIN—Europe’s Airbus on Nov. 2 delivered the “powerhouse” for NASA’s new Orion Spaceship that will take astronauts to the Moon and beyond in coming years, hitting a key milestone that should lead to hundreds of millions of euros in future orders.

Engineers at the Airbus plant in Bremen, Germany on TNov. 2 carefully packed the spacecraft into a special container that will fly aboard a huge Antonov cargo plane to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a first step on its way to deep space.