By Andy Pasztor
NASA successfully launched an initial, unmanned version of a
capsule on a test flight intended to demonstrate its suitability
for human exploration of the solar system in coming decades.
Following a flawless countdown at Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station in Florida, a heavy-lift Delta IV rocket lifted the
pear-shaped, 11-foot tall Orion spacecraft on the start of its
long-awaited inaugural voyage.
Slated to make two orbits around the earth during its nearly
five-hour trip, Orion is supposed to reach a maximum altitude of
3,600 miles, nearly 15 times higher than the trajectory of the
international space station. The primary goals are to demonstrate
the ability of Orion's electronic systems to withstand radiation
spikes, and then plummet back to earth to test its heat shield and
parachutes.
Unlike Thursday, when uncooperative winds and balky fuel valves
prompted a last-minute scrub of the launch, Friday's countdown went
smoothly without any delays.
Perched on top of the Air Force's most powerful booster, which
generated more than 2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, the
roughly 242-foot tall rocket and its payload arced gracefully into
the Florida sky shortly after 7 a.m. Eastern time.
"It's a really exciting day," NASA chief Charles Bolden said
before liftoff. "It's a big day for the world, for people who know
and like space."
Seconds after liftoff, a NASA launch commentator described it as
"the dawn of Orion, and a new era in American space
exploration."
Agency experts said the rocket's main engines worked as expected
and the second stage ignited on cue, nearly 6 minutes into the
flight. With the rocket nearly 120 miles high, the emergency system
intended to blast astronauts away from the booster also separated
as designed.
Nearly nine minutes into the flight, NASA said the rocket was
"functioning perfectly at this point."
From an anticipated speed of 20,000 miles an hour when it first
re-enters the atmosphere, the capsule is expected to slow to
roughly 17 miles an hour before splashing down in the Pacific about
600 miles southwest of San Diego.
Marc Geyer, NASA's Orion program manager, said the Delta IV's
initial firings put the capsule, built by Lockheed Martin Corp.,
into a "perfect orbit," and "everything is looking great." About an
hour into the mission, the rocket's second stage is slated to
conduct another burn to help propel the capsule toward its highest
point.
Orion is intended to be the centerpiece of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration's human exploration efforts
through the 2030s, but funding and policy disagreements cloud its
future. Moreover, the capsule almost didn't make it to the
launchpad.
U.S. President Barack Obama and his advisers initially moved to
abandon the program soon after entering office--when it was set to
go to the moon--arguing it was too expensive and would take too
long to deploy. When aerospace contractors fumed and Congress
balked, NASA's leadership proposed to relegate the mission to a
supporting role: serving as a permanent standby rescue vehicle for
astronauts to get off the international space station in an
emergency.
Finally, some three years ago, after NASA officials and
lawmakers reached a hard-fought bipartisan compromise, Orion was
reconfigured to become a pathfinder vehicle at the core of NASA's
long-term exploration vision. Teamed with a next-generation rocket,
dubbed the Space Launch System, NASA envisions Orion carrying
substantially more cargo than any previous spacecraft while taking
astronauts deeper into space than ever before.
If all goes as planned, Friday's test flight will be the first
time since 1972, when Apollo 17 returned from the moon, that a
spacecraft built to carry astronauts will venture beyond low-Earth
orbit.
NASA anticipates thousands of spectators again jamming roads
near the launch complex, as they did Thursday, with local hotels
filled and excitement surrounding the mission.
But no matter how well Friday's debut goes, NASA faces years of
daunting technical and financial challenges. The overall system
could cost more than $20 billion through 2021, which some industry
officials said excludes certain operational and other costs.
Orion is set to take astronauts to an asteroid and eventually to
Mars, sometime in the late 2030s. However, debate continues to
simmer on Capitol Hill and elsewhere about whether astronauts
should first take Orion near the moon to perfect propulsion,
fueling, life support and other essential technologies.
It is unclear how NASA's budgets--already stretched by the
roughly $3 billion cost of its share of operating the international
space station--will cover Orion's price tag. Building and testing
separate vehicles able to touch down at destinations is likely to
cost billions of additional dollars.
A round-trip voyage to the vicinity of Mars could take up to two
years. To cope with such rigors, Orion is designed to carry several
times as much drinking water, food supplies and propellant than
capsules intended to serve the space station or reach other
low-Earth orbit destinations.
Faced with budget pressures and continuing congressional
uncertainty, the first manned mission may not happen until the
beginning of the next decade. After that, NASA's hope is to average
roughly one Orion launch a year, but financial issues could
significantly stretch out that schedule.
For many space fans, however, Thursday's activities in Florida
sparked memories of NASA's heyday, when manned missions to the moon
captured the imagination of people around the globe. Part of the
reason is that at least from the outside, Orion resembles the craft
that transported those lunar explorers.
NASA officials have gone out of their way to stress the
parallels and symbolic connections between Orion and the lunar
explorations.
NASA and Lockheed have been betting that Friday's events will
reinvigorate the agency's manned exploration efforts, as well as
prompt other countries to consider participating in long-term Mars
missions. Astronaut Rex Walheim, who flew on the last space shuttle
and now serves as the astronaut representative to the Orion
program, expressed the hopes of many NASA officials. Orion is
"another jump from the shuttle program," he said on NASA TV. With
renewed talk about ultimate deep-space human missions, he said,
"you have that excitement back here at Kennedy Space Center."
Michael Hawes, Lockheed's Orion program manager, said Friday's
mission also represents a "test of our whole partnership and
organization" working with the agency. Lockheed had an unusually
big role in setting up Friday's flight, which cost about $370
million.
Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com
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