NASA has released a new video of their Orion spacecraft's re-entry from 3,600 miles above Earth.
The spacecraft is designed to carry as many as four astronauts, possibly for missions to Mars and nearby asteroids. The test flight in the video was unmanned, but it is the first time a spacecraft designed for astronauts has gone as far as Orion did in over 40 years.
The video shows the last 10 minutes before the spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, including the breach through Earth's higher atmospheres.
The spacecraft reached speeds of over 20,000 mph during its re-entry and heats of over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Work already has begun on the next Orion capsule, which will launch for the first time on top of NASA's new Space Launch System rocket and travel to a distant retrograde orbit around the moon," the space agency said in a statement.
Source: UPI