Unmanned Flight Will Have Apogee Far Higher Than ISS Orbit

The first flight of the Orion crew capsule is being planned for sometime in 2014, though a specific target date has not been identified.

Artist's Rendering Orion Reentry

Lockheed Martin and NASA officials say the crew module will be boosted into an orbit with an apogee of nearly 3,700 miles, which will be the highest any U.S. human-rated spacecraft has flown since the Apollo program. By comparison, the ISS orbits at an altitude between 205 and 255 miles.

Program managers say that the high altitude flight will allow them to perform a high-energy reentry into the atmosphere in order to stress the heat shield on the spacecraft, according to a report appearing in the Orlando Sentinal. The flight will also test 10 critical systems, such as controlling software and parachutes. NASA Orion program manager Mark Geyer told the paper that the 2014 time frame gives NASA and its contractors time to find and fix problems before a manned test.

The flight will also mean a boost in employment on Florida's Space Coast, where some 6,000 people lost their jobs when the shuttle was retired. Lockheed Martin said it could add as many as 400 workers on the program as the test approached.

And not to be discounted is morale at the space agency. While any manned flight is still many years away, NASA sees the Orion test flight as a way to let its workers know that they're still in the business of putting people into space, and returning them safely to the Earth.

FMI: www.nasa.gov