NASA's Orion Capsule Will Fly in Seven Years

NASA has announced that Lockheed Martin will build America's new space capsule, called Orion. Expected to orbit Earth by 2014, Orion is expected to reach the moon by 2020. Although the capsule design has not been deemed to be especially exciting, unlike earlier capsules, Orion will be reusable. Melissa Block talks with U.S. Air Force Chief Scientist Mark Lewis about the spacecraft.

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Europe's first lunar mission reaches moon

BERLIN (AP) — Europe's first spacecraft to the moon ended its three-year mission Sunday by crashing into the lunar surface in a volcanic plane called the Lake of Excellence, to a round of applause in the mission control room in Germany.

Hitting at 1 1/4 miles per second, the impact of the SMART-1 spacecraft was expected to leave a 3-yard-by-10-yard crater and send dust miles above the surface. Observatories watched the event from Earth and scientists hoped the cloud of dust and debris would provide clues to the geologic composition of the site.

"That's it — we are in the Lake of Excellence," said spacecraft operations chief Octavio Camino as applause broke out in mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. "We have landed."

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