During the flight, NASA was testing everything on board, and everything that it experienced. There were 1,200 sensors on the spacecraft, which recorded everything.
At its peak height, it reached 3,604 miles, which was about 14 times higher than any manned rockets since the Apollo moon missions. Those launches took place more than 42 years ago. At this altitude, the capsule traveled through the Van Allen belts – to test the computers to ensure they could withstand the radiation.
The Orion space capsule reached a maximum speed of 20,000 mph, and then dropped down to 20 mph just before touchdown. It did it in just 11 minutes, too, with eight parachutes.
This was the first launch of the Orion deep space capsule. It is designed to be the capsule that will take astronauts into deeper space, and ultimately to Mars – and beyond. A new rocket is being built for those missions, which are expected to take place in the 2020's.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-tries-again-launch-orion-spacecraft-085238083.html
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Photo Credit: Unchanged; https://www.flickr.com/photos/mseeley1/15332934253
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Keywords: Orion, launch, successful, NASA