NASA has got to like the odds for its Thursday morning test launch for the Orion Spacecraft that will one day try to land astronauts on the surface of Mars.
According to USA Today, the space agency has been given a 60 percent chance of weather conditions favorable to a launch. The test is scheduled for 7:05 a.m. Thursday at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Meteorologists expect the favorable window to last about two hours and 39 minutes, though there is a high-pressure system threatening low clouds, easterly winds and showers. The backup plan is to delay the launch to Friday, though the odds would still sit at 60 percent.
NASA reportedly expects the entire test to last four hours and 30 minutes, sending Orion 3,600 miles above the Earth. At a distance 15 times higher than the International Space Station, Orion will re-enter the planet's atmosphere at 20,000 mph. Like NASA hopes it will one day do on Mars, Orion will try out its parachute as it attempts a landing on the water.
"Orion's flight test is designed to test many of the riskiest elements of leaving Earth and returning home in the spacecraft. It will evaluate several key separations events, including the jettison of the launch abort system that will be capable of carrying astronauts on future missions to safety if a problem were to arise on the launch pad or during ascent to space, and the separation of the Orion crew module from its service module ahead of its reentry though Earth's atmosphere," NASA said in a press release. "Orion's heat shield also will be tested to examine how the spacecraft endures its high speed return from deep space. The heat shield will experience temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit during Thursday's test, and will come back at about 80 percent of the speed the spacecraft would endure returning from the vicinity of the moon."
