Orion team watches the spacecraft return

Astronaut John Casper and Lockheed Martin's Carol Webber watch Orion's parachutes open during the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-) landing sequence on Dec. 5, 2014. The Orion spacecraft orbited Earth twice, reaching an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles above Earth before landing. No one was aboard Orion for this flight test, but the spacecraft is designed to allow us to journey to destinations never before visited by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. Photo: NASA / Radislav Sinyak

Astronaut John Casper and Lockheed Martin's Carol Webber watch Orion's parachutes open during the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-) landing sequence on Dec. 5, 2014. The Orion spacecraft orbited Earth twice, reaching an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles above Earth before landing. No one was aboard Orion for this flight test, but the spacecraft is designed to allow us to journey to destinations never before visited by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. Part of Batch image transfer from Flickr.

Photographer Radislav Sinyak