LEAD: NASA plans test flight of next-generation spacecraft

By Anne K Walters Nov 8, 2011, 19:15 GMT

Washington - The United States will conduct the first unmanned test flights of its next-generation spacecraft in 2014, NASA announced Tuesday.

The test of the Orion spacecraft will focus on testing the craft for reentry into Earth's atmosphere. It will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, make two orbits around the Earth and then make a water landing.

NASA hopes to fly the crew capsule about once or twice a year through the 2020s and to fly a manned mission to an asteroid by 2025, but exact plans for when and where the new craft's first mission will be are not yet set.

The tests will help the agency develop a spacecraft that can survive 32,000 kilometre per hour speeds and return astronauts safely to Earth, said Bill Gerstenmaier, who heads human exploration and operations for NASA.

The space agency did not specify what rocket would be used for the test, but the heavy-lift rocket that is being designed to carry the spacecraft to distant locales is not due to have its first test flight until 2017.

NASA retired its ageing space shuttle fleet earlier this year and is shifting attention to working with commercial companies to fly astronauts to the International Space Station and other destinations in low-Earth orbit.

Those moves freed up the space agency to focus on developing its own Orion spacecraft capable of travelling to more distant destinations.

'President Obama and Congress have laid out an ambitious space exploration plan, and NASA is moving out quickly to implement it,' NASA Associate Administrator for Communications David Weaver said in a statement. 'This flight test will provide invaluable data to support the deep space exploration missions this nation is embarking upon.'

The Orion craft replaces an earlier capsule of the same name that was part of an effort announced by former president George W Bush that focussed on returning to the moon.