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                  New US Spacecraft Blasts Off on Test Mission

   by VOA News

   A new spacecraft that is intended to take U.S. astronauts back to the
   moon and beyond has blasted off on a test flight.

   The Orion capsule was originally scheduled to lift off Thursday from
   the Cape Canaveral launch complex in the southeastern state of Florida
   but a variety of problems led to a delay.  They included a faulty
   rocket valve, wind speeds and a boat that wandered into a restricted
   zone off the coast.

   The unmanned spacecraft will make two orbits of the Earth at an
   altitude more than 14 times higher than the International Space
   Station.  After its four-and-a-half hour flight, Orion will re-enter
   Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 32,000 kilometers an hour, before
   splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.

   The U.S. space agency [1]NASA says the first manned mission aboard
   Orion will not happen until at least 2021.  Once it is fully
   operational, Orion will carry anywhere from four to six astronauts on
   deep space missions to the moon, an asteroid and eventually Mars.

   The space agency is also developing a new rocket, dubbed the Space
   Launch System, that will carry Orion.

   Since the last space shuttle flight in 2011, U.S. astronauts have been
   transported to the ISS aboard Russia's Soyuz capsule.  NASA has awarded
   contracts to two private companies, Boeing and Space X, to begin
   ferrying astronauts to the orbital outpost beginning in 2017.
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   [2]http://www.voanews.com/content/new-us-spacecraft-blasts-off-on-test-
   mission/2546966.html

References

   1. http://www.nasa.gov/
   2. http://www.voanews.com/content/new-us-spacecraft-blasts-off-on-test-mission/2546966.html