Ares I-X trundles to launchpad

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OCTOBER 20, 2009 9:08AM

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The vehicle, described by NASA as the "essential core of a safe, reliable,

cost-effective space transportation system" and built on "cutting-edge launch technologies, evolved powerful Apollo and space shuttle propulsion elements, and decades of NASA spaceflight experience", represents the trailblazer for the agency's Constellation programme. Indeed, the Ares I's first stage, five-segment solid rocket booster is a space shuttle spin-off, while its upper-stage J-2X engine is derived from the "powerful J-2 engine that propelled the Apollo-era Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets" The rocket is designed to carry the all-new "Orion crew exploration vehicle", which NASA hopes will be making it first trips to the International Space Station "early in the next decade", and thereafter carrying humans "back to the Moon, and then onward to Mars and other destinations in the solar system". For the test flight, the Ares I-X will carry a dummy upper stage to an altitude of 40km (25 miles), while sensors measure the vehicle's performance. The dummy stage will be lost when it impacts with the Atlantic, while the solid booster will parachute down to an ocean recovery. Trent Smith, the vehicle processing engineer for the Ares 1-X, told the BBC: "It's a tall rocket; it's been over three decades since anyone has built a rocket this tall. That was the Saturn V. "We have over 700 sensors on this rocket; and the whole point of Ares 1-X is to understand how does a rocket this shape, this weight, this tall actually fly."

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