14 DAY TRIAL // The American space agency NASA has recently released a few pictures of the amazing new rocket that it is preparing for a first test flight later this year. The images reveal that astounding ARES I-X delivery system taking shape in the Vehicle Assembly Building, at the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The tall and skinny rocket is now almost half completed, after new pieces were brought in and attached to the existing ones last week, Wired reports.
The ARES delivery systems I, IV and V are all part of NASA's Project Constellation, which was designed as a replacement for the Shuttle Program. With the current orbiter fleet scheduled to be withdrawn from active duty by the end of 2010, the pressure is high on the agency to come up with the new spacecraft, ARES I, as soon as possible. However, that seems unlikely to happen by the 2015 deadline, considering the numerous delays and cost overruns the project has been plagued with. In the latest such development, the first test flight of the ARES I rocket has been pushed back another two months.
“Yesterday, yet another portion of the Ares I-X rocket was stacked on the Mobile Launch Platform in Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building. Now that super stack 1 is up and on, the 327-foot rocket is more than half way assembled and the team is getting excited as they watch it take shape in High Bay 3,” a post on NASA's blog announced on July 31st.
“Super stack 1 is composed of the fifth segment simulator, forward skirt, forward skirt extension, frustum and interstages 1 and 2. It also includes two internal elements – the roll control system and the first stage avionics module – as well as the parachute system housed in the forward skirt extension. The team used a massive overhead crane, specially adapted for I-X use, to place it on top of the forward motor segment,” the announcement continued.
“Over the next month, four more super stacks with the final pieces of hardware (including the simulated crew module and launch abort system) will be mated, finishing off the stacking operations for the rocket. So, in about a month, NASA is going to be able to show off one of the biggest rockets the world has ever seen!” it concluded.
NASA continues working in parallel on ARES I, ARES I-X, and Launch Pad 39B at the KSC, so as to get everything up and running as fast as possible. Modifications to the pad are required, because it needs to accommodate a different rocket configuration than the shuttle carriers, which are shorter and bulkier.
In another development, the American space agency is currently under review by the Obama Administration, which is interested in learning if the ARES I rocket is, indeed, the best way of taking astronauts to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station starting 2015. The review is highly important, because the recommendations that the inspectors make could lead to less or more funding, depending on the conclusions of the investigations. The original test, scheduled for April, was canceled on account of concerns related to the levels of vibrations that the rocket experienced during ascent.
