NASA spaceship Orion successfully completes debut test run

A U.S. spaceship designed to one day fly astronauts to Mars made a near-bullseye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, wrapping up a flawless, unmanned debut test flight around Earth.

NASA's new Orion spacecraft made a "bull's-eye" splashdown in the Pacific on Friday, following a dramatic test flight that brought the United States one step closer to landing an astronaut on Mars.

Orion ended its trial run around Earth four and a half hours after it began at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and achieved at least one record: flying farther and faster than any capsule built for humans since the Apollo moon program. One minute, 25 seconds after liftoff, Orion went supersonic.

Three hours into the flight, the spacecraft reached peak altitude of 3,604 miles into space, a prelude to the most challenging part of the flight, a 20,000-mile per hour dive back into the atmosphere.

NASA is counting on future Orion missions to carry astronauts beyond Earth's orbit, to asteroids and ultimately the grand prize: Mars.

"There's your new spacecraft, America," Mission Control commentator Rob Navias said as the Orion capsule neared the water.

NASA said the capsule's computers were not affected by high radiation, one of the key questions they hoped to answer with the test.

United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing that builds and flies the rocket, delayed launch by one day to resolve a problem with its first-stage propellant system.

Orion’s journey began with a sunrise liftoff witnessed by thousands of NASA guests. Riding atop a fountain of fire, the 24-story-tall rocket soared out over the Atlantic Ocean, punching through partly cloudy skies as it headed into orbit.

Cars jammed roads for miles around the spaceport as thousands of people attempted to catch a glimpse of the launch. The last time crowds this large gathered for rocket watching was for NASA’s space shuttle program, which stopped operating in 2011.

“I think it’s a big day for the world, for people who know and like space,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said during a NASA Television interview shortly before launch.

Friday's flight test brings NASA "one step closer" to putting humans aboard Orion, Bolden said just before liftoff.

NASA has been working on Orion, along with a new heavy-lift rocket, for more than eight years. The design of the rocket has changed, but Orion survived the cancellation of a lunar exploration program, Constellation, to become the centerpiece of a new human space initiative intended to someday fly astronauts to Mars.

NASA deliberately kept astronauts off this first Orion test run.

Managers want to test the riskiest parts of the spacecraft — the heat shield, parachutes and various jettisoning components — before committing to a crew.

NASA has spent more than $9 billion developing Orion, which will make a second test flight, also without a crew, in about four years. A third mission, expected around 2021, might include two astronauts on a flight that will send the capsule high around the moon. An asteroid redirected to lunar orbit is intended for the first stop in the 2020s, followed by Mars in the 2030s.

Al Jazeera and wire services