NASA's Orion spacecraft is built to take humans farther than they've ever gone before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.
On December 5, 2014, Orion launched atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex Flight Test on the Orion Flight Test: a two-orbit, four-hour flight that tested many of the systems most critical to safety.
The Orion Flight Test evaluated launch and high speed re-entry systems such as avionics, attitude control, parachutes and the heat shield.
In the future, Orion will launch on NASA's new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System. More powerful than any rocket ever built, SLS will be capable of sending humans to deep space destinations such as an asteroid and eventually Mars. Exploration Mission-1 will be the first mission to integrate Orion and the Space Launch System.
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Orion Flight Test
Exploration Flight Test-1
PRESS KIT/December 2014
www.nasa.gov
NP-2014-11-020-JSC
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
Orion Flight Test
December 2014
Contents
Section
Page
Flight Overview ......................................................................................................... 1
Timeline Overview .................................................................................................... 2
Flight Profile .............................................................................................................. 8
Recovery Operations .............................................................................................. 11
Vehicle Components ................................................................................................14
Delta IV Heavy Rocket ............................................................................................ 19
Flight Objectives ..................................................................................................... 21
Flight Personnel ...................................................................................................... 22
Next Steps for NASA ............................................................................................... 25
Public Affairs Contacts ........................................................................................... 28
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Orion Flight Test
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December 2014
Orion Flight Test
December 2014
Flight Overview
Orion is NASA’s new spacecraft built to carry
humans, designed to allow us to journey to
destinations never before visited by humans,
including an asteroid and Mars. On this
uncrewed test flight, Exploration Flight
Test-1, Orion will test systems critical to
crew safety as it travels farther into space
than any spacecraft built for humans has
traveled in more than 40 years.
During the 4.5-hour flight, Orion will orbit
Earth twice, co