NASA successfully launches Orion on 2nd try

After scrubbing its first attempt yesterday, NASA this morning successfully launched an unmanned exploration capsule that could pave the way for humans to make their way to Mars.

Onlookers cheered as a 24-story Delta IV Heavy rocket rumbled slowly from its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station pad with NASA's first Orion capsule at 7:05 a.m., according to USA Today.

The project is a four-and-a-half hour test flight intended to take Orion on two laps around the planet, flying 3,600 miles up to set up a high-speed re-entry through the atmosphere and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. NASA hopes to use the technology to send astronauts to an asteroid in the 2020s and to Mars, possibly in the 2030s.

Read more from USA Today.