Live Updates: NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Orbits Earth
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NASA/Bill Ingalls(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — NASA’s Orion spacecraft lifted off Friday morning from Cape Canaveral to the delight of NASA engineers, who had been forced to scrub the launch on Thursday after a trio of problems.
The spacecraft, which could one day ferry astronauts to Mars, is scheduled to orbit the Earth twice at an altitude of 3,600 miles before splashing down 600 miles off the coast of California around 11:30 am ET.
Orion will make re-entry at 20,000 mph with temperatures hitting 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit — twice as hot as molten lava.
If this test succeeds, the next step will be another launch to circle the Moon in 2018, then a manned mission to the Moon in 2020.
Orion seats four astronauts — one more than Apollo. While the design may be the similar, Orion is equipped with technology that is light-years ahead of its Moon-shot mission predecessor.
The spacecraft’s computer can process 480 million instructions per second. It’s also 25 times faster than the computers at the International Space Station, according to NASA.
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A scheduled launch Thursday was postponed due to several problems, including wind gusts, a stray boat in the launch zone and technical issues.
ABC News is following the Orion’s activity from its lift off to splash down four and a half hours later in the Pacific Ocean.
Stay with the ABC News live blog for the latest on the unmanned Orion mission.
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