Update for Dec. 5 at 12:27 p.m. EST: The NASA/Navy recovery teams that will retrieve Orion out of the Pacific Ocean are at the splashdown site and are waiting for the space capsule to power down. NASA and Orion builder Lockheed Martin are conducting a test to see how hot the capsule gets after splashdown with all of its systems on.FULL STORY:Splashdown! NASA's Orion Spaceship Survives Epic Test Flight as New Era Begins

NASA'sOrion capsule launched into space on its first-ever test flight at 7:05 a.m. EST (1105 GMT), riding atop a ULA Delta 4 Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The capsule is made two orbits beforesplashing down in the Pacific Ocean. See Orion Test Flight Photos Here.Watch it live here:

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Friday's launch is scheduled to take place at 7:05 a.m. EST from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. If all goes according to plan, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy rocket will blast the unmanned Orion capsule out to 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) from Earth. Orion will then come rocketing back home at high speeds, splashing down in the P]acific Ocean about 4.5 hours after blasting off. The goal is to test out various of the capsule's systems in the space environment.

NASA's Orion Spacecraft: Full Coverage of First Test Flight

NASA plans to use Orion to take astronauts to deep-space destinations, such as asteroids and Mars. The first crewed flight of the capsule is currently slated for 2021.

Hangout: Science of 'Interstellar': Tune in at 3 pm EST today (Nov. 26) to watch astrophysicists discuss the science of Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic "Interstellar."The California-based Kavli Foundation is hosting the discussion; the participants are Mandeep Gill, Eric Miller and Hardip Sanghera. Watch it live in the window below.

NASA officials will broadcast the launch of three new crewmembers to the International Space Station on Sunday (Nov. 23) from Kazakhstan.NASA astronaut Terry Virts, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov are scheduled to launch atop a Soyuz rocket to the orbiting outpost at 4:01 p.m. EST (2101 GMT). FULL STORY:New Space Station Crew Launches Today: Watch Live .You can watch it live in the window below starting at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT):

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

From NASA: "The trio will ride to orbit in a Soyuz spacecraft, which will rendezvous with the space station and dock after four orbits of Earth. Docking to the Russian segment's Rassvet module will take place at 9:53 p.m. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 9:15 p.m. Around 11:30 p.m., hatches between the Soyuz and the station will be opened. Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore of NASA, as well as Flight Engineers Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova of Roscosmos, will greet Virts, Shkaplerov and Cristoforetti. Hatch opening coverage begins on NASA TV at 11 p.m."

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WATCH LIVE NOW: NASA Discusses Scrub of 1st Orion ...