AlHijjah 12, 1432, Nov 8, 2011, SPA -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said Tuesday it will flight test its Orion space capsule in 2014, three years earlier than planned. The deep-space capsule, made by Lockheed Martin, will replace the retired space-shuttle fleet and eventually be used to transport four astronauts to nearby asteroids, the moon, or Mars. The first unmanned test flight of the capsule is now set for 2014 and will be on a commercial rocket. Originally, the U.S. space agency would wait until its own rocket was ready in 2017. But NASA officials said the test launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida seeks to determine earlier how the Apollo-like capsule returns to Earth after two orbits and how NASA teams recover it from an ocean landing. The capsule will be reused. The U.S. space agency said in a statement it hopes the data will help "influence design decisions" and "reduce the cost and schedule risks of exploration missions." "The entry part of the test will produce data needed to develop a spacecraft capable of surviving speeds greater than [32,000 kilometers] per hour and safely return astronauts from beyond Earth orbit," said NASA administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. "This test is very important to the detailed design process in terms of the data we expect to receive."
