Orion Splashes Down After Picture Perfect Mission
By Space Coast Daily // December 5, 2014
Splashed Down On Target In Pacific Ocean at 11:29 a.m.
ABOVE LIVESTREAM: Watch Orion launch coverage as the flight test ended with Orion splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 11:29 a.m. EST after a “picture perfect” first mission.
ABOVE VIDEO: REPLAY OF THE ORION LAUNCH.
BREVARD COUNTY • CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – NASA’s new spacecraft, Orion, splashed down on target in the Pacific Ocean at 11:29 a.m. EST.
The #Orion crew module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean approximately 600 southwest of San Diego at 11:29 a.m. EST.
Flight controllers have reported that the spacecraft is in a stable configuration.
Orion is bobbing on the surface of the Pacific Ocean now and a pair of U.S. Navy ships are moving in to retrieve it.
The recovery team from NASA, the U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin will perform initial recovery operations, including safing the crew module and towing it into the well deck of the USS Anchorage ahead of its return to U.S. Naval Base, San Diego and then on to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Orion was successfully launched at 7:05 a.m. Friday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Orion is designed to take humans beyond Earth orbit into deep space, including missions to an asteroid and eventually Mars.
