Ares I-X rocket chalks up successful test flight
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--Running a day late, NASA launched its 33-story Ares I-X rocket on a $445 million unmanned test flight Wednesday, a spectacular six-minute sub-orbital mission to collect data needed for the design of NASA's proposed shuttle replacement.
"Oh, man! Well, how impressive is that?" Program Manager Jeff Hanley told the launch team after the spent rocket fell back to the Atlantic Ocean. "I hope you appreciate that you've accomplished a great step forward for exploration."
Said Launch Director Ed Mango: "Think about what we just did. Our first flight test, and the only thing we're waiting on is weather. That says you all did frickin' fantastic! So thank you very much."
Vapor clouds form around NASA's unmanned Ares I-X rocket as it accelerates through the region of maximum aerodynamic pressure less than a minute after liftoff Tuesday.
(Credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now)The 327-foot-tall unmanned rocket roared to life at 11:30 a.m. EDT and majestically climbed away from launch complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center atop a torrent of 5,000-degree flame and a cloud of churning exhaust.
Liftoff came three-and-a-half hours behind schedule because of overnight thunderstorms and nearby lightning strikes that required unplanned tests, along with cloudy weather that posed a risk of static charge buildups that could have interfered with communications.
The weather went in and out of limits all morning, but a break in the cloud cover gave Mango the window he needed to come out of a hold at the T-minus four-minute mark and proceed on to launch.
When the countdown hit zero, four massive hold-down bolts exploded, the booster's load of solid propellant ignited and the rocket began climbing away.
An instant after booster ignition, the rocket's nozzle moved slightly to steer the Ares I-X away from the gantry, preventing the hot exhaust from hitting launch pad structures. The maneuver was apparent to the unaided eye and the rocket stayed well away from the gantry.
Using a four-segment space shuttle solid-fuel booster as the first stage and a dummy upper stage simulator, the unusual-looking rocket - the tallest launcher since NASA's huge Saturn 5 moon rocket - cleared the gantry in about six seconds and then soared away to the East.
The Ares I-X rocket blasts off from pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center.
(Credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now)It was the first launching in NASA's post-Columbia Constellation program, which calls for development of manned and unmanned Ares rockets, Orion crew capsules and landers designed to support Antarctica-style moon bases in the 2020s.
But the Obama administration is re-evaluating NASA's manned space program and whether it makes sense to return to the moon while assessing a report from an independent panel of experts that concluded NASA did not have enough money to carry out the Constellation program.
The panel suggested it would make more sense to abandon the Ares I rocket in favor of rockets and crew capsules provide by private industry on a commercial basis. Under that approach, NASA could focus on development of the heavy lift rockets needed to carry astronauts to a variety of deep-space targets.
Given the political uncertainty in Washington, it's unclear if the Ares I rocket that Tuesday's test flight was designed to support will ever actually fly.
But NASA managers and engineers were elated to get the huge test rocket off the ground and the towering booster lived up to expectations, putting on a spectacular show for space center workers, area residents, and tourists.
"Vindication really does not describe it well," Hanley said after the flight. "It's a sense of validation that the course that we had laid out is executable. An early demonstration like this puts aside any doubt in our minds, if we had them, as to the flyability of this particular design.
"We have a design that will do the country service, if it is put into service," he said. "The performance of the vehicle was very pleasing, to put it mildly."
Twenty seconds after liftoff, the rocket reached its maximum thrust of 3.16 million pounds of push with an internal pressure of 895 pounds per square inch.
The flight plan called for the rocket's nozzle to move back and forth 0.12 degrees 34 seconds after liftoff in a "programmed test input" to collect data on the stiffness of the vehicle and how it responded to dynamic changes.
The results of the nozzle deflections were too subtle to be visible to the unaided eye and the rocket appeared to stay solidly on course as it accelerated through the sound barrier 39 seconds after liftoff.
Long-range tracking cameras showed the rocket making only slight rolling motions about its long axis as small roll control rockets fired to maintain the proper orientation. Roll control was a question mark early on in the rocket's development, but engineers said it was not a problem in flight.
Another "programmed test input" - moving the nozzle by 0.12 degrees - presumably began at 55 seconds into flight. Five seconds after that, the Ares I-X was expected to experience maximum dynamic pressure of 850 pounds per square foot, subjecting the booster to the greatest stress it would experience in flight.
A 0.35 degree programmed test input was planned for 75 seconds into flight with a final 1-degree side-to-side yaw maneuver scheduled for 93.6 seconds.
The rocket accelerated to a peak velocity of about 4.5 times the speed of sound, reaching an altitude of 25.2 miles. At that point, when the rocket's thrust fell to less than 40,000 pounds of push, an explosive charge fired to separate the first stage from the dummy upper stage.
A wide-angle shot of the Ares I-X rocket climbing away through a partly cloudy sky.
(Credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now)An instant later, eight upward-firing rockets at the base of the booster ignited to back the first stage away from the second, a maneuver clearly visible in long-range tracking camera views.
But in a departure from the expected flight program, the dummy second stage went into a flat tumble as it continued along its ballistic trajectory instead of maintaining a nose-forward orientation. The dummy upper stage rose to a maximum altitude of about 150,000 feet before arcing over and plunging back to Earth 150 miles east of the space center.
In a final major test, three 150-foot-wide parachutes were designed to deploy to lower the spent first-stage booster casing to the Atlantic Ocean where a NASA recovery ship was standing by to tow it back to Port Canaveral. A camera on the rocket showed a smaller drogue parachute deployed, but video stopped moments later and the main chutes were not seen.
But the recovery ship quickly located the booster and a NASA spokesman said the crew of an aircraft flying over the floating rocket later said all three parachutes were visible in the water. An initial assessment, sources said, indicated normal blistering on the rocket and a dent of unknown origin in the aft segment.
"We completely met our success criteria, in fact we blew them away," said Mission Manager Bob Ess. "The first one was to roll out (to the launch pad), obviously we did that one. Clear the pad, we did that without a problem. Fly the intended flight path, we certainly did that, we confirmed that. And the last one was to learn from the flight.
"So far, we're on a path to learn a lot. The separation seemed a little different than we predicted as far as how the upper stage reacted after separation. So right there's an opportunity for us to jump in and figure out what was different in the actual flight from our models. So, hugely successful."
It will take engineers several weeks to complete a quick-look analysis of data from more than 700 sensors that measured pressures, stresses, temperatures, and other factors throughout the flight. But the initial results indicated no major problems.
William Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He has covered more than 115 shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune, and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of "Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia." You can follow his frequent status updates at the CBSNews.com Space Place, where this story was first published. 
Time to either shut them down or let them go private and take them off the taxpayers' ***.
I'm not in favor of the Constellation program, but I'm glad you are not in charge of managing the budget.
In 1969 we had technology to send a man to the moon, but it was only as a visitor's pass. We only had the technology to stay in space for two weeks at the most, then nothing. Into the 1970s and early 80s we still had not found the technology to stay in space for extended periods of time and the missions and experiments kept failing. The height of the space program came to a unexpected stop with the challenger disaster among other things. The space program never really covered from that.
What is different today from 1969, yes we worry more about money, but we have spent the last 40 years learning how to live and work in space for the extended periods needed to build livable habitats on the moon and mars and capsules to last the 6-18 months it takes to go to mars and back. We are going to the moon and we are going there to stay. I think that what NASA keeps failing to tell people.
Here are some other expenses. This too is tax-payer money !
1. We spend $ 1 bn EVERY WEEK in Iraq.
2. We gave $700 bn to Banks, Financial Institions and other assorted thugs on Wall Street. Yes, that about 3000 times that of ARES program. Yes, THREE THOUSAND times!
Can we have some perspective please?
Imagine what it would be like if we always had this attitude towards our progression? Never excelling, never discovering... Play your part so that when this planet is drained, we can someday travel to another, or pull necessary resources from another, to survive.
I'll have to agree NASA should only use developing commercial programs to get to LEO, and concentrate on heavy lifters, aka Aries V, and permanent deep space exploration vehicles that can be resupplied as needed. A few visits to Near Earth Asteroids are in order. Mars moons are interesting targets also, but only with ion engines to get us there and back.
Billions made from millions is a good investment not matter what anyone says. We take the advances and expand entire industries from the space program. Quality jobs and wealth are created from it and that is a very good thing.
To address the "guess" of Toulinwoek, when you ask what this money was for think about some of these. This type of proven space travel is 40 times safer than the outdated Space Shuttle and the reason we want to go back to the moon is now that we have the technology to do it at a fraction of the cost of our orignal trip. The Ares rock has the option of sending either people, cargo or a combination of the two, previously we needed the ship to be manned at all times. The Ares rock holds over half a dozen men( more but I can't remember the exact number) any anyone who has seen an Apollo capsule can appreciate that improvement!
As far as "letting them go private" kudos to Paul Allen who funded the only private successful manned mission. NASA would welcome any other person or government for competition to assist in finding new technology. Who else aside fronm the Chinese is breaking new gound? (In case you have not heard, the Chinese are not our best friends when it comes to technology)
Again, job well done to NASA!!!
What could we give up - or do - in order to offset them?
I think those are alot of great and priceless words for science.
The War machine on the other hand is not. Come to think of it.. It was the war machine that in our past history that brought us our technology of today. I would like that to change, and have departments of science and commercialization to change that.
Yes, probably commercialization would take some of the costs off the taxpayers, im not against that... but im also saying that money spent on Nasa is money well spent rather than the war machines of today.
Science departments such as NASA can develop other research and not just rockets, but they can develop new more efficient aircraft flight technologies which can be commercialized, new unmanned pilots, new energy methods, recycling.
We need to push our edge again in the right direction of science, and commercialize them to arrive to the normal day-to-day user.
Here are some other expenses. This too is tax-payer money !
1. We spend $ 1 bn EVERY WEEK in Iraq.
2. We gave $700 bn to Banks, Financial Institions and other assorted thugs on Wall Street. Yes, that about 3000 times that of ARES program. Yes, THREE THOUSAND times!
Can we have some perspective please?
On the other hand, I have a counter suggestion, Why don't we stop the subsidies to industry? Like the $50 bn we handout to the Petrol Industry??
Also, there is plenty of new technology being developed by the Constellation program...and it's very easy to see what they are doing. Visit NASA's website and watch the Ares quarterly reviews...it's amazing the amount of work that is being done all across the country to develop a new, safe, and reliable system to put US astronauts into orbit and beyond. I think that's about as practical a project NASA could possibly be tasked with.
I feel weird whenever people say "Nothing new at all". When was "newness" ever a criteria? The cars use internal-combustion engine - a technology that is 100 YEARS old. But we still use it, right?
"Just because we find a bacteria on another planet...". I think, the discovery of another living thing is of low priority to people who do not value very highly. We have converted every living thing to a item of consumption. The next step may be trade up on the spouse to a better, newer model. Wonder what comes next.
Also, $450 million is the cost of the entire Ares I-X development program from inception 4 years ago up through and including launch and analysis. The valuable information and lessons learned from this flight will save potentially that much or even more once Ares I passes the critical design review phase.
Did anyone else watch the press conference? Many of the questions and accusations brought up in this discussion here were addressed.
Link to the press conference video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYgo8ZjeOeM
- by November 13, 2009 8:07 PM PST
- This is probably the single best article I've seen on the Ares I-X launch. About the only thing missing is an update on the fact that there were problems with the parachutes, but that's minor, and the detail on the launch itself is superb. Well done, William Harwood.
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