NASA on December 5, 2014 carried out a successful test flight of Orion space vehicle, a new generation of spacecraft to resume deep space exploration in future after the grounding of the last of space shuttles. Orion was launched in a space launch system (SLS), and the capsule reached the Van Allen Belt surrounding the earth, farthest ever venture since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Orion reached the height of 3,604 miles over the earth, almost 14 times higher than that of the International Space Station. After a voyage of 4-and-1/2 hours, the capsule splashed into Pacific Ocean off the coast of the Baja California at a speed of 20,000 mph and endured a temperature of 4,000 degrees. The same capsule will be reused for a launch abort test in 2017, and a second Orion will be launched in 2018.
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