Orion's first flight was a success. Now what?

It wasn't too long after NASA's Orion spacecraft splashed into the Pacific Ocean that Mike Sarafin left his desk in mission control.

A few hours earlier, Orion had made a spectacular launch from Florida, and Sarafin, the lead flight director, had steered its ascent to nearly 4,000 miles in space, then ensured a safe, fiery return to Earth.

Outside mission control, the public applauded as the uncrewed Orion soared in early December and NASA took its first step toward sending humans back into deep space. Inside, Sarafin and his flight controllers had their heads down, in the data, to ensure a flawless flight. Even when a drone vividly captured Orion's screaming-fast fall through the clouds into the Pacific, Sarafin forced his focus away from the video, back to checklists and procedures.

When he emerged from Johnson Space Center that afternoon, endless meetings, scrubs and a flight day that had begun in the wee hours caught up with him. He drove home and crashed.

While Sarafin slept, the world celebrated.

Orion's flight - success for NASA after a difficult decade in human spaceflight - had captured the public's imagination.

The news was everywhere when Sarafin woke up. "The fact that Al-Jazeera carried the Orion flight test as one of its top news stories tells you something," he said. "The mission had an impact far beyond just human spaceflight, just Houston, just America. It was a global story."

For Sarafin, it confirmed how much people hunger for spaceflight and for America to take the lead.

"That's what excites me about moving forward."

And that is what NASA now must do, build upon this flight as it tries to reach into deep space after more than four decades.

The next move is analyzing the data collected by hundreds of sensors, both inside and outside the spacecraft, during Orion's four-hour flight. Orion went far beyond low-Earth orbit, where all of NASA's human spacecraft have gone since 1972.

Learned from building it

Much of that data has already reached Mark Geyer's corner office in building 17 overlooking the space center's campus in Clear Lake, where deer share ground with small rocket engine tests.

As Orion program manager, Geyer bears responsibility for ensuring that before the spacecraft's second uncrewed flight, in late 2017 or more likely 2018, the vehicle sheds weight and gains a hardier heat shield.

About the only major issue during December's test flight, he said, came at the end of the mission. Orion landed upright, but in case the capsule lands on its side, five balloons should inflate to turn it right-side up. Three of the five did not fully inflate. Geyer said the problem will be fixed after his engineers understand what caused the bags to fail.

Everything else went almost exactly as expected. So much so, Geyer said, that his engineers and those from the spacecraft's contractor, Lockheed Martin, actually learned more from building Orion than flying it.

During construction, engineers realized the heat shield, needed to protect the spacecraft on its descent through the atmosphere, wasn't as strong as expected. It was OK for the first flight, but not for the next mission, which will send Orion around the moon and back over 17 days.

Extreme heat and cold

Made of a ceramic material called AVCOAT - it's like a very hard eraser used on a chalkboard - the shield must withstand temperatures near absolute zero and those as high as the surface of the sun during a lunar voyage. The material must be able to compress in the coldness of space, and not crack when it heats back up.

Geyer said his engineers believe that by applying the AVCOAT material in a different way, it'll be stronger for the next flight.

Another big challenge before Orion flies again, known within NASA as Exploration Mission 1, will be reducing weight. Parachutes can bear only so much as Orion falls to Earth, and the first test vehicle made the load limit because it had no life support systems. Some basic changes must be ready for the next mission, and finalized for the first human mission, planned in 2021.

For this task, flight data will help again. Engineers are looking at stress on Orion as it launched and landed to determine where they can pare back structural support without compromising safety. Already, Geyer said, engineers have found ways to trim hundreds of pounds.

Finally, the team also must develop those life support systems, including air and water for the crew, as well as radiators to carry heat away from the capsule's interior.

Geyer's team would, of course, like to fly sooner. But his funding - about $1 billion a year - dictates a slower pace.

Potential moon, Mars flights

Still, with the first flight in the books, Orion now appears to be on more solid ground. Since December, Geyer said, he's noticed a burst of energy among his team. The engineers in Houston are starting to believe this vehicle will one day carry humans to the moon, or even be part of a Mars mission by the middle of the century.

"A lot of people outside of NASA didn't think we could do it," Geyer said. "We're a long way from this thing flying every year, and this becomes NASA's spacecraft for the long run. We know that. We're not out of the woods. But after what we went through, it gives me a lot of confidence in what this team can do, and what this vehicle can do."

Geyer always believed in Orion, even as it took nearly a decade to get it ready for its debut. But the program was nearly canceled once, and in his years at NASA, he's seen a lot of worthy efforts relegated to the scrap heap for various budgetary or political reasons. Now that will be more difficult, he said. America has seen what Orion can do in space, and what it could do for the country's exploration program.

"The reaction really validated for a lot of us why we feel like we're here, why we do this job," he said. "It's because of the importance the country places in the United States being a leader in exploring space."