Orion Launch
Headed for two orbits of planet Earth and a splashdown in the Pacific,
Orion
blazed into the early morning sky on Friday at 7:05am ET.
The
spacecraft was launched atop a United
Launch Aliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station in Florida.
Its first voyage
into space on an uncrewed flight test,
the Orion traveled some 3,600 miles from Earth, about 15 times higher
than the orbital altitude of the International Space Station.
In fact, Orion traveled
farther
into space than any spacecraft designed
for astronauts since the Apollo missions
to the Moon.
The Orion crew module reached speeds of 20,000 miles per hour
and temperatures approaching 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit
as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere about 4.5 hours after launch.
Tomorrow's picture: shimmer and flash
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Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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