NASA Orion Test Flight 2014 Schedule - This week, NASA will launch its Orion spacecraft to make it first test flight. The launch is scheduled on Thursday, Dec. 4 at 7:05 a.m. EST. The spacecraft will make its space debut with a morning launch on the top of the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.
The NASA Orion Test Flight 2014 will be unmanned and is scheduled to take off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch window will be open for two hours and 39 minutes. USA Today reported the test flight will start a two-orbit, four-and-a-half hour mission called Exploration Flight Test-1.
NASA's Orion spacecraft is designed to go far beyond the moon. It is set to climb an altitude of 3,600 miles, which is 15 times higher than the International Space Station. The new NASA spaceship will splash down in the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles off the coast of Baja California. CNN reported two US Navy ships, the USS Anchorage and the USNS Salvor, will help NASA recover the capsule.
Since the space shuttle program ended in 2011, the NASA Orion Test Flight 2014 scheduled on Thursday won't carry any astronauts to space. But as said by NASA, the Orion spacecraft is designed and built to carry astronauts on exploration missions into deep space. Though no one will aboard the spaceship during the mission, it won't blast off empty for it will carry the NASA Orion Test Flight boarding passes with names of over a million people packed on a dime-sized microchip.
The Orion was built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and the company will also staged the $370 million test flight scheduled this week for NASA. Phys.org said, unlike the capsules under development by two US companies for space station crew transport, Orion is meant for a long haul, both time and space. And it would be complemented with habitats for possible Mars exploration missions.
For Thursday-scheduled NASA Orion Test Flight 2014, the NASA officials have attached over 1,000 sensors to the spacecraft to monitor its systems during flight. Orion will also take down pictures from its cameras as its flying through space. The data gathered during the mission will be used by NASA to make improvements to the spaceship before humans set foot onboard.
Since Tuesday, Dec. 2, NASA started to air several media and public events in the approach to Orion's launch. NASA officials will also hold two pre-launch news conference updates on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the NASA Orion Test Flight 2014 Schedule.
After the mission on Thursday, NASA officials will also brief the media. The NASA TV Orion events can be watched live on Space.com.
The space agency is pulling out all the stops for the NASA Orion Test Flight scheduled on Dec. 4. NASA has collaborated with the nonprofit, educational Sesame Street Workshop to promote not just Orion's inaugural run, but the effort to send astronauts to Mars.
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