A new American human-rated spacecraft made its first foray into space on Dec. 5, 2014. Under contract to NASA, Lockheed Martin builds Orion as the vehicle to
take American astronauts back to the Moon and eventually beyond. Orion’s overall shape harkens back to the Apollo Command and Service Modules, but using today’s technology is a larger and far more capable vehicle for NASA’s Artemis Program.
Orion’s first mission, called Engineering Flight Test-1 , used a Delta-IV Heavy booster, at the time the most powerful operational rocket. The 4.5-hour mission demonstrated Orion’s space-worthiness, tested the spacecraft’s heat shield during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, and proved the capsule’s recovery systems. Although the EFT-1 mission didn’t include a crew, the Orion capsule flew higher and faster than any human-rated spacecraft in more than 40 years.
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with NASA’s Orion spacecraft mounted atop, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37B in Florida.At 7:05 a.m. EST on Dec. 5, 2014, the three-core first stage of the Delta-IV Heavy rocket ignited, lifting the Orion spacecraft off from Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force, now Space Force, Station in Florida to begin the EFT-1 mission.
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