On its first flight Thursday, the Orion capsule will orbit earth twice, carrying 1,200 sensors.
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The first flight with astronauts isn’t planned to take place until six years from now.
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The first Orion mission to Mars isn’t anticipated until about 2035, preceded by numerous shorter flights for the four-person capsule to help improve technologies that will protect Mars-bound astronauts from radiation in deep space and the physiological impairments of a zero-gravity environment. One of those flights, set for the mid-to-late 2020s, will involve a rendezvous with an asteroid redirected by a robot spacecraft to orbit the moon.