NASA’s Orion unmanned spacecraft completes historic test flight

Orion, the unmanned spacecraft of NASA, successfully completed its test flight labeled as Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) and returned back to Earth – this is seen as the first tentative step towards mission Mars.
Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 275 miles west of Baja California and the splashdown, which was streamed live from a NASA drone – naturally, it sparked scenes of celebration at the space agency’s Mission Control in Houston.
Orion had successfully taken off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday and was carried into space by a Delta IV Heavy Rocket. NASA has lauded the mission as a "textbook" maiden flight. The $370 million test flight was managed by Lockheed Martin and the Delta IV Heavy Rocket was built by United Launch Alliance.
Incidentally, Orion’s journey was a record of sorts the 4 hour and 24 minute because during the orbital mission Orion went deeper into space than any spacecraft built for humans has traveled in more than 40 years. It orbited the Earth twice, and, at one point, hit a maximum altitude of 3,604 miles.
During re-entry, it reached a speed of around 20,000 mph and generated temperatures around 4,000 degrees on the heat shield of the spacecraft.
In the opinion of Chris Carberry, executive director of Explore Mars, a non-profit organization that aims to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades, the Orion test starts us on the path toward sending humans beyond Low Earth Orbit.
He also said that NASA plans to start going to intermediate destinations in the early 2020s, including the Asteroid Redirect mission – and, if that or any other similar mission is to be achieved, there is a need to start testing hardware - as with EFT-1.