Am I going to get up early on Thursday to watch the Orion launch? The launch window opens up at 6 am Central. So probably not. I can watch a replay a few hours later. Hope it goes well.

The Weather Channel – which seemed very interested in the launch, which I suppose depends on the weather – called Orion the “first deep space mission” since Apollo 17, and I wondered about that. What about all of the missions to various planets? Turns out they were abbreviating things to the point of inaccuracy, as TV often does.

This from Jason Davis at the Planetary Society (italics added): “Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1) is a two-orbit shakedown cruise designed to test out Orion’s critical components — specifically, how the vehicle responds to radiation in the Van Allen belts, and how the heat shield fares under a fast reentry from beyond low-Earth orbit. While Orion’s eventual ride to space is the Space Launch System, EFT-1 will use a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket. The Delta IV Heavy will fly out of Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

“Orion will be dropped into a preliminary, 185 by 888 kilometer orbit for a lap around the Earth. Then, the Delta IV’s second stage will re-ignite, kicking the spacecraft up to an altitude of 5,800 kilometers—higher than any human-rated spacecraft has been in more than 40 years. The unusual orbit will send Orion hurtling back into Earth’s atmosphere at speeds up to 32,000 kilometers per hour. Splashdown will take place off the coast of Baja California in the Pacific Ocean, where NASA and the US Navy will haul the capsule into the flooded well deck of the USS Anchorage.”