NASA's Orion deep space exploration spacecraft completed its maiden uncrewed flight test called Exploration Flight Test-1 on Dec.5, validating critical flight systems and safety features developed for a successful crewed mission.
Orion is NASA's new spacecraft built to carry humans and designed for journeys to destinations never before visited by astronauts. It will carry crews to distant planetary bodies, provide emergency abort capabilities, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space.
Video: Orion Lift off
The spacecraft lifted off at 7:05 a.m. EST, from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.
The Lockheed Martin built spacecraft gently splashed down into the waters of the Pacific Ocean at 11:29 a.m. EST, approximately 4.5 hours later in the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles southwest of San Diego.
The flight tested Orion's heat shield, avionics, parachutes, computers and key spacecraft separation events, exercising many of the systems critical to the safety of astronauts who will travel in Orion.
Infographics: Orion Flight Path
With the core boosters separated, the second stage lifted Orion into its initial orbit and the launch abort system tower, service module support fairings, protective panels and a forward bay cover were successfully jettisoned from the spacecraft at predetermined times during the flight. Then the spacecraft and second stage of the Delta IV rocket settled into an initial orbit about 17 minutes after liftoff. Flight controllers put Orion into a slow roll to keep its temperature controlled while the spacecraft flew through a 97-minute coast phase.
The second stage re-ignited again about two hours into the flight to send Orion through the Van Allen radiation belts and to a peak altitude of 3,609 miles, some 15 times higher than the International Space Station.
During the flight, Orion traveled twice through the Van Allen belt, a layer of intense radiation located above Earth's atmosphere. That helped engineers measure the effect of deep space radiation on both astronauts and on-board electronics.
Orion's cameras were turned off during its passes through the belts to protect them.
Three hours, 23 minutes into flight, the Orion crew module flew on its own following separation from its service module and the Delta IV Heavy second stage. Onboard computers later set the spacecraft in the right position so its base heat shield can bear the brunt of the intense reentry heat.
Some 1200 sensors installed inside the crew module collected data on the acoustics, vibrations, forces, and temperatures future astronauts will experience during deep space missions.
Four hours and 13 minute into the mission, and orbiting the Earth twice, Orion re-entered the atmosphere, reaching speeds of 20,000 miles per hour and travelled through belts of intense radiation before enduring a fiery, 4,000 degree F.
Orion encountered about 80 percent of the heat it would endure during a return from lunar orbit with astronauts aboard. Ground controllers lost contact with Orion for 2 1/2 minutes during reentry when the spacecraft was surrounded by plasma. The contact was regained just before the forward bay cover was jettisoned in a process that began the parachute deployment.
Video: Orion Splash Down
Orion's 11 parachutes deployed in stages, slowed the spacecraft from a 20,000 mph re-entry to 20 miles per hour at splashdown.
Orion on the Well Deck of USS Anchorage Photo credit: NASA
A team of NASA, U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin personnel aboard the USS Anchorage, recovered and will return the Orion to U.S. Naval Base San Diego in the coming days.
Orion will then be delivered to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be processed.
The crew module will be refurbished for use in Ascent Abort-2 in 2018, a test of Orion's launch abort system.
On future missions, Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket currently being developed at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. A 70 metric-ton (77 ton) SLS will send Orion to a distant retrograde orbit around the moon on Exploration Mission-1 in the first test of the fully integrated Orion and SLS system.
The next spacecraft is being built to fly Exploration Mission-1, or EM-1. It will also fly without astronauts onboard, but will make a much longer flight, this time going around the moon carrying an operational service module to produce power and topping off the first test of the gigantic SLS rocket.
The Delta IV Heavy configuration launch vehicle featured a center common booster core along with two strap-on common booster cores.
Each common booster core was powered by an RS-68 Liquid Hydrogen/Liquid Oxygen engine producing 663,000 pounds of thrust.
A single RL10 Liquid Hydrogen/Liquid Oxygen engine powered the second stage. The booster and upper stage engines are both built by Aerojet Rocketdyne.
ULA constructed the Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle in Decatur, Alabama. This is ULA's 13th launch in 2014, the 28th Delta IV mission and the eight Delta IV Heavy launch.
