The NASA took an important step in its intention to carry humans to Mars when, on Friday, the Orion capsule completed its first test flight of unmanned traveling farther than any spacecraft designed to carry astronauts in over forty years. “The Orion test flight is a big step for NASA and a very important part of our work in deep space,” said agency administrator, Charles Bolden. “In the not too distant future, astronauts destined to be the first humans to walk on Mars will leave the Earth in a spacecraft Orion,” said
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The spacecraft took off on Friday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the Delta IV rocket. The module splashed four hours and then in the Pacific Ocean, 600 km southwest of San Diego. During the test flight, Orion traveled twice through the Van Allen belt, where he experienced periods of high radiation and reached an altitude of 5,793 kilometers above the Earth.
A team of NASA, the US Navy .S. and Lockheed Martin personnel aboard an amphibious ship USS Anchorage, were responsible for the recovery of Orion to take her to the Naval Base San Diego. The capsule, then, will be delivered to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be processed. The crew module will be refurbished for use in mission ascent Abort-2, in 2018, a test system abortion launch of the ship.
“I really pushed to Orion much as we could to have actual data that can be used to improve the design of the ship in the future, “said Mark Geyer, director of Orion Program. “In the coming weeks, we will take a look at that valuable information and apply lessons learned to the next Orion, already in production for the first mission aboard Rocket Space Launch System”.
NASA plans to send a spacecraft to capture an asteroid close to Earth and divert its path until it reached a stable orbit for two astronauts go to the Orion spacecraft to study and sampling, as a step to reach Mars. The project has the support of Barack Obama, but does not have the green light from Congress for the necessary budget.
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