Navy bringing back NASA’s Orion after test flight

SAN DIEGO (AP) – A U.S. Navy ship carrying NASA’s new Orion spacecraft is making its way to San Diego after retrieving the capsule from its Pacific Ocean splashdown point about 600 miles southwest of San Diego last week.

The USS Anchorage was headed Monday afternoon to Naval Base San Diego with the spacecraft, which parachuted into the ocean after a two-orbit, 4.5-hour flight test with no astronauts aboard.

Orion traveled 3,600 miles above Earth to test the spacecraft’s systems before it carries astronauts on deep space missions.

During re-entry into the atmosphere, the spacecraft endured speeds of 20,000 mph and temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The spacecraft will be loaded onto a truck bound for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida where its performance will be analyzed.

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