New NASA Flight Test

Exploration Flight Test 1 or EFT-1 (previously known as Orion Flight Test 1 or OFT-1) was the first test flight of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. The craft, without a crew, was launched on December 5, 2014, at  7:05 am EST, atop a Delta IV Heav7y rocket nfr0om Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The mission was a four-hour, two-orbit test of the Orion crew module featuring a high apogee on the second orbit and concluding with a high-energy reentry at around 20,000 miles per hour (32,000 km/h; 8,900 m/s). This mission design corresponds to the Apollo 4 mission of 1967, which validated the Apollo flight control system and heat shield at re-entry conditions planned for the return from lunar missions.

NASA heavily promoted the mission, collaborating with Sesame Street and its characters to educate children about the flight test and the Orion spacecraft.

Objectives

The flight was intended to test various Orion systems, including separation events, avionics, heat shielding, parachutes, and recovery operations prior to its debut launch aboard the Space Launch System, currently scheduled for no later than November 2018.

Vehicle Assembly

EFT-1 Orion was built by Lockheed Martin.  On June 22, 2012, the final welds of the EFT-1 Orion were completed at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana.  It was then transported to Kennedy Space Center's Operations and Checkout Building, where the remainder of the spacecraft was completed.  The Delta IV rocket was put in a vertical position on October 1, 2014, and Orion was mated with the vehicle on November 11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_Flight_Test_1