NASA’s first Apollo capsule (left) ever to take flight returns to its birth site as an exhibit.

This demonstrator capsule first flew on Nov. 7, 1963 in an escape tower test (right) at White Sands, New Mexico. After a roundabout tour around the city of Downey, California, the Apollo capsule boilerplate now sits a few hundred feet from its construction site in that city, where it will be restored and displayed as part of the Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center, according to the Aerospace Legacy Foundation.

In his description of this capsule, Aerospace Legacy Foundation board member James Busby points out that this early version was resembles the final Apollo capsule in shape only. It holds no windows, carries three hatch handles and was never meant for flight beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, he wrote in a description to the space history website collectSPACE.com.

The Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center will hold its groundbreaking ceremony on April 10.

NASA’s new plan to return astronauts to Moon by 2020 using its Apollo-derived Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle has a multitude of tests ahead akin to the one seen in this image.

Engineers at the space agency’s Langley Research Center in Virginia have been performing a series of tests to determine how an Orion capsule [image] would fare during a land landing.

Future capsule escape tower tests – also at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range – are expected in the future. The first manned Orion launch is slated for sometime in 2015.

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-- Tariq Malik

Credit: Aerospace Legacy Foundation/collectSPACE.com.