Orion splashes down after first test flight

The new type of spacecraft that NASA hopes will take
astronauts to Mars has passed its first test above Earth.
NASA's Orion capsule -- part of America's bid to take
crews beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time since the
Apollo missions -- splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on
Thursday morning after a nearly 4½-hour, two-orbit,
uncrewed test flight.
The cone-shaped craft, slowed by a series of parachutes,
settled onto the water at 8:29 a.m. PT about 600 miles
southwest of San Diego.
"America has driven a golden spike as it crosses a bridge
into the future," a NASA announcer said as the capsule
bobbed on the ocean's surface during the agency's TV
broadcast of the event.
The flight took Orion farther from Earth than any craft
designed for human flight has been since the Apollo 17
mission to the moon in 1972 -- a confidence builder for a
program that NASA hopes will take its first human crew
into space in 2021.
Orion, a crew module designed to carry up to six
astronauts, soared into the Florida sky at 7:05 a.m. ET
from Cape Canaveral atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket.
The assembly shed its boosters before the rocket's second
stage lifted Orion into low-Earth orbit in minutes.
"The launch itself (was) just a blast," NASA Orion
program manager Mark Geyer quipped on NASA TV
shortly after liftoff, "as you see how well the rocket did. It
was exciting to see."
Then, two hours later, a milestone: The second stage lifted
Orion higher for its second orbit, about 3,600 miles above
Earth, or 15 times higher than the International Space
Station.
After the splashdown, crews from two Navy recovery
ships were working to collect the reusable craft.
It was a crucial test for the capsule, whose flight and re-
entry abilities NASA wants to prove before it carries
astronauts.
Charles Bolden Op Ed: NASA's Mars milestone
A new beginning
NASA hopes Orion will usher in a new era: Eventual
human exploration of space beyond the moon.
While private space companies like SpaceX are expected to
take over the space shuttles' old job of ferrying astronauts
and supplies to the International Space Station in low-
Earth orbit, NASA wants Orion capsules to take humans
farther out.
"We haven't had this feeling in a while, since the end of the
shuttle program," Mike Sarafin, Orion flight director at
Johnson Space Center, said in a preflight briefing on
Wednesday.
The Orion crew module, which looks like a throwback to
the Apollo era but it is roomier, is designed to go far
beyond the moon.
One of Orion's tasks, once fully functional, might be to send
astronauts to an asteroid -- perhaps one that NASA
would first robotically redirect to orbit around the moon.
NASA says it hopes that Orion, pushed by a more
powerful rocket system under development, will send
astronauts to an asteroid in the 2020s.
NASA hopes Orion later will send astronauts to Mars'
moons, and eventually -- maybe in the 2030s -- to Mars
itself.
When it becomes fully operational, Orion's crew module
will be able to carry four people on a 21-day mission into
deep space, or six astronauts for shorter missions. By
comparison, the Apollo crew modules held three astronauts
and were in space for six to 12 days. Orion's crew module
is 16.5 feet in diameter and Apollo was 12.8 feet in
diameter, NASA said.
Though Orion's first flight didn't have people on it, it didn't
go up empty. It carried the names of more than a million
people packed on a dime-sized microchip.
"Sesame Street" sent up some mementos to inspire students
about spaceflight, including Cookie Monster's cookie and
Ernie's rubber ducky.
Also aboard: an oxygen hose from an Apollo 11 lunar
spacesuit and a small sample of lunar soil. A Tyrannosaurus
rex fossil from the Denver Science Museum made the
trip, and lockers were filled with flags, coins, patches,
poetry and music.
Friday's launch came a day after NASA scrubbed its first
attempt because of a failure of some valves in the boosters
to close. Those valves, which allow fuel to flow into the
boosters before launch, are supposed to close just before
liftoff.