CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. With Orion's perfect Experimental Flight Test-1 on Friday, NASA took the first step toward sending humans into deep space and delivered the U.S. another \"Apollo moment.\" <\/p>\n
It has been almost 42 years to the day since a human-rated spacecraft has traveled outside of low Earth orbit. Apollo 17, which put men on the moon for the last time, launched Dec. 7, 1972. <\/p>\n
\"We, as a species, are meant to push human presence in the solar system,\" said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration. \"And this is the first step in starting to do that.\" <\/p>\n
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., early Friday. On a \"picture-perfect day,\" the Colorado-built spacecraft hurtled into space, orbited Earth twice and splashed down four hours later in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. (Brent Lewis, The Denver Post) <\/p>\n
Every Florida road with a view of the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station had cars lining the shoulder Friday morning as Orion, America's next-generation deep-space capsule, lifted off with a roar, carried to space on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket. <\/p>\n
Orion's 4-hour, 24-minute journey included two passes of Earth one at an altitude of 552 miles and another at 3,604 miles. The craft twice passed through the Van Allen Radiation Belts, which can wreak havoc on the spacecraft's systems. <\/p>\n
Orion splashed down at 9:29 a.m. Mountain time, about 630 miles southwest of San Diego. The craft bobbed in the Pacific for about an hour while data was collected. Navy divers then recovered the capsule for transport back to San Diego aboard the U.S.S. Anchorage. <\/p>\n
The launch, flight and recovery could not have gone any better for Centennial-based ULA, said an elated Jim Sponnick, vice president of ULA's Atlas and Delta rocket program. <\/p>\n
\"It was just a picture-perfect day from beginning to end,\" Sponnick said. \"That's really a testament to years of hard-working and really capable folks working all of the details, that all culminated in a launch like we saw today.\" <\/p>\n
Spectators cheer as the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket, with NASA s Orion spacecraft mounted atop, lifts off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Smiley N. Pool, Associated Press\/Houston Chronicle) <\/p>\n
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