At its peak, Orion's orbit is expected to extend nearly 3,700 miles from Earth - the farthest a NASA spacecraft built for humans has gone since the early 1970s.
That distance is "significantly higher than human spaceflight has gone since Apollo," said Larry Price, Orion deputy program manager at Lockheed Martin. "The reason for that is so we can get a high-energy entry so we can stress the heat shield."
The test will determine whether Orion can survive the reentry into Earth's atmosphere - where temperatures are expected to reach 4,000 degrees - in preparation for a human flight in 2021. NASA hopes that Orion eventually can carry astronauts back to the moon or to nearby asteroids.
Besides the heat shield, the practice flight is designed to test 10 systems whose failure could be disastrous, including the capsule's flight software and parachutes. Like its Apollo-era predecessors, the four-person Orion capsule is designed to land in water.
"The beauty about flying in 2014 is that we can learn early if there are problems, so if we find something we really got to fix, we've got time before we fly people," said Mark Geyer, head of the Orion program at NASA.
The test also gives NASA, and Orion manufacturer Lockheed Martin, a chance to showcase part of the agency's new exploration program, details of which were agreed to last fall after a year of negotiation among the White House, Congress and industry.
In Florida, the test flight, which will cost $375 million, will provide Kennedy Space Center with some badly needed work. The retirement of the shuttle led to the loss of at least 6,000 jobs. Lockheed Martin plans to employ as many as 400 workers for Orion at Cape Canaveral as it approaches the test flight.
NASA's exploration program still is years away from being operational, and NASA leaders see the Orion test as a morale booster.
