NASA launches Orion crew capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

NASA directed a full-stress launch abort test Tuesday for the Orion capsules intended to convey space explorers to the moon.

The capsule was empty for the morning demo, which authorities said appeared to be successful.

Scarcely a minute after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the abort motor fired, pulling the capsule from the booster around 6 miles (10 kilometers) up. The capsule proceeded with upward another 2 miles (3 kilometers), then flipped to jettison the abort tower.

NASA decided not to utilize parachutes to keep this test rendition of the capsule basic and along these lines spare time, thus it collided with the Atlantic at 300 mph (480 kph) as arranged, the three-minute test total. Twelve information recorders popped off in brilliant orange canisters before effect, for ocean recovery.

“By all accounts, it was magnificent,” said program manager Mark Kirasich. It will take a few months to go through all the data collected by the hundreds of vehicle sensors, he said.

NASA aims to put space explorers on the moon by 2024 utilizing its still being developed Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket. Tuesday’s test represents “a really great, great step forward today for the team,” Kirasich said.

This was the second abort test for Orion, led at a speed of in excess of 800 mph (1,300 kph). The first, in New Mexico in 2010, was lower and slower.

A launch abort system on a Russian rocket spared the lives of two space travelers last October. They propelled again in December, this time making it to the International Space Station, where regardless they’re working.

“It had been 35 years since anyone on the planet had had to exercise their launch abort system,” NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik told reporters Monday. “That was definitely a good message to all of us that, ‘Hey, this is serious stuff. This isn’t just an OK, it probably won’t happen.’ We need to be ready.”