Orion and Apollo spacecraft lunar orbits, illustration. Orion (white trajectory) is NASA's next spacecraft to send humans into space. Intended for use in the 2020s, it is designed to send astronauts further into space than ever before, beyond the Moon to asteroids and even Mars. The orbital path to the Moon (right) from the Earth (left) will be different to that taken by the Apollo astronauts (grey trajectory) in the 1960s and 1970s. The Orion trajectory will be a double loop around the Moon, rather than the single loop of the Apollo spacecraft. This type of trajectory uses the Moon's gravity well to help the spacecraft enter and leave lunar orbit. For illustrations of the orbit of just the Orion spacecraft, see images C046/9200 to C046/9202.