NASA launch opens new era
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s new Orion spacecraft streaked into orbit today on a high-stakes test flight meant to usher in a new era of human exploration leading ultimately to Mars.
The unmanned journey began with a sunrise liftoff witnessed by thousands of NASA guests. Parts of the spacecraft peeled away exactly as planned, falling back toward Earth as onboard cameras provided stunning views of our blue, cloud-covered planet.
Orion’s debut will be brief — just 4½ hours from launch to splashdown, with two orbits of Earth. But for the first time in 42 years, NASA is sending a spacecraft built for humans farther than a couple hundred miles from Earth. The previous time was the Apollo 17 moon shot.
And it’s NASA’s first new vehicle for space travel since the shuttle.
“Very exciting,” NASA’s Orion program manager, Mark Geyer, said early in the flight. “We still have a bunch to go.”
NASA is now “one step closer” to putting humans aboard Orion, said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. He called it “Day One of the Mars era.”
Sluggish rocket valves and wind halted the launch Thursday, but everything went NASA’s way today as the Delta IV rocket carried Orion into orbit. The first-stage boosters detached and fell away into the Atlantic as the spacecraft soared from Florida to South Africa and beyond.
NASA launch commentator Mike Curie fed the enthusiasm in the gathered crowds, calling it “the dawn of Orion in a new era of American space exploration!”
NASA was aiming for a peak altitude of 3,600 miles on Orion’s second lap around the planet, to give the capsule the necessary momentum for a scorchingly high-speed re-entry over the Pacific.
Engineers want to see how the heat shield — the largest of its kind ever built — holds up when Orion comes back through the atmosphere traveling 20,000 mph and enduring 4,000 degrees.
