NASA's Orion EFT-1 spacecraft successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about four and a half hours after liftoff.
The EFT-1 launch is the test flight of the first craft designed to put people beyond low earth orbit since the Apollo missions, but that's not where NASA's ambitions end. Space agency administrators say the Orion capsule is capable of carrying four astronauts on a 21-day mission into deep space and is the first step towards eventually sending humans to Mars.
It was with these lofty goals in mind that Exploration Flight Test 1 was launched to five times the height of the International Space Station's orbit, testing the heat and radiation shielding to levels comparable to that of re-entry from deep space.
http://ift.tt/1A1VH7A
No comments:
Post a Comment