NASA will use a new countdown clock for the first launch of the Orion spacecraft Thursday.

The countdown clock is placed in the same exact spot at the Kennedy Space Center press site where the old countdown clock used to be.

NASA Spokesman George Diller said although the old clock is still working, it's too expensive to fix and maintain it. It uses 349 light bulbs to illuminate the hours, minutes and seconds, the colons and the plus and minus signs.

Like Us on Facebook

The multimedia display was unveiled Tuesday and starts the countdown of the hours, minutes and seconds until Thursday morning's blast-off.

Orion is the U.S.' first new manned spacecraft since the legendary Apollo Moon program.

NASA said the successful test flight of the Orion spacecraft will be the first step toward human exploration of the solar system. They added Orion's first manned mission is set to occur in the early 2020s.

"Thursday is the beginning of that journey," said Mark Geyer, Orion's program manager at a news conference.

Orion is a larger version of the cone-shaped Apollo capsule. It sits atop a Delta IV Heavy Rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The blast-off schedule is 7:05 a.m. Thursday. In case of bad weather, the launch could be delayed for up to two hours.

The second stage of the rocket will push the 11-foot tall Orion into an elliptical orbit that will reach 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface on its second orbit.

Orion will then return to Earth at 20,000 miles per hour, close to the speeds of a capsule returning from the Moon. It will generate a temperature of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit upon re-entry.

After the four-and-a-half-hour flight, Orion will splash down in the Pacific Ocean 600 miles off the coast of Baja, California. The amphibious navy ship Anchorage will retrieve Orion from the water. 

TagsNASA, orion, NASA Capsule, NASA Spacecraft, spacecraft, space exploration, Mars, red planet, rocket launch, rocket, NASA Orion Launch On Thursday