NASA's Orion successfully completes historic test flight

December 06, 2014 22:06

A NASA spacecraft designed to one day fly astronauts to Mars has made a near-bullseye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, wrapping up a flawless, unmanned debut test flight around Earth.

The uncrewed Orion capsule blasted off aboard a Delta 4 Heavy rocket, the biggest in the fleet, just after dawn on Friday (about 2am on Saturday AEDT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Three hours later, it reached peak altitude of 5800 kilometres above the planet, a prelude to the most challenging part of the flight, a 32,000 km/h dive back into the atmosphere.

Image: The Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Orion spacecraft lifts off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.Photograph: NASA

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