The second Orion capsule slated for spaceflight and the first to be human-rated, this initial power-up at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida marks the first time that the spacecraft's vehicle management computers and the power and data units were installed and brought online.

The power-on test was part of the run up to the three-week Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) in 2019, during which the unmanned Orion capsule and its service module will be launched atop NASA's Space Launch System on a deep-space flight test that will see it fly over 40,000 mi (64,000 km) beyond the Moon's orbit. This flight will test most of the avionics and subsystems that will be needed when later missions carry astronauts aboard.

Such unmanned testing is necessary because the computers and software need to reliably process 480,000,000 instructions per second to execute thousands of commands and sequences while controlling hundreds of spacecraft systems and components in a high-radiation environment in deep space. In addition, EM-1 will demonstrate the integrated system performance of the capsule and the solar power system capable of running eight three-bedroom houses.