Breaking News: Orion Splashes Down After First, 2-Orbit Test Flight.

The new type of spacecraft that NASA hopes will take astronauts to
Mars has passed its first test above Earth.

NASA's Orion capsule -- part of America's bid to take crews beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo missions -- splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday morning after a nearly 4½-hour, two-orbit, uncrewed test flight.

The cone-shaped craft, slowed by a series of parachutes, settled onto the water at 8:29 a.m. PT about 600 miles southwest of San Diego.

"America has driven a golden spike as it crosses a bridge into the future," a NASA announcer said as the capsule bobbed on the ocean's surface during the agency's TV broadcast of the event.

The flight took Orion farther from Earth than any craft designed for human flight has been since the Apollo 17 mission to the moon in 1972 -- a confidence builder for a program that NASA hopes will take its first human crew into space in 2021.

Orion, a crew module designed to carry up to six astronauts, soared into the Florida sky at 7:05 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket. The assembly shed its boosters before the rocket's second stage lifted Orion into low-Earth orbit in minutes.

"The launch itself (was) just a blast," NASA Orion program manager Mark Geyer quipped on NASA TV shortly after liftoff, "as you see how well the rocket did. It was exciting to see."

Then, two hours later, a milestone: The second stage lifted Orion higher for its second orbit, about 3,600 miles above Earth, or 15 times higher than the International Space Station.

After the splashdown, crews from two Navy recovery ships were working to collect the craft.

It was a crucial test for the capsule, whose flight and re-entry abilities NASA wants to prove before it carries astronauts.

Source:CNN