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The Ares I-X rocket is being stacked on the Mobile Launch Platform in NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for the rocket’s first test flight, scheduled for October 31, 2009. The “super stack 1” was mated to the forward motor segment, and the rocket — which will stand at 99 meters (327 feet) — is now more than half way assembled. Assembly is done using a massive overhead crane, specially adapted for I-X use.
For comparison, the space shuttle stands at 56.1 m (184 ft), the Saturn V rocket was 110.6 m (363 ft), and the Ares V will be 116 m (380 ft) high.
See more images of the rocket below.
According to NASA’s Ares Blog, 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 Ares I-X flight test will provide NASA an opportunity to check and prove hardware, analysis and modeling methods, and facilities and ground operations needed to develop the Ares I, which currently is NASA’s next crew launch vehicle. However, President Obama has assembled the Augustine Commission to evaluate the Ares rocket and the entire Constellation Program to determine if NASA should continue on its current path.
The test also will allow NASA to gather critical data during the ascent of the integrated stack, which will help inform the design of the Ares I rocket and the Orion crew exploration vehicle. The data will ensure the entire vehicle system is safe and fully operational before astronauts begin traveling in it to the International Space Station and moon.
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.
Source: Ares Blog
Now THAT is an impressive machine.
It’s very impressive and I do hope it does well but I fear it is a giant NASA project dinosaur blending the worst features of Saturn V and the shuttle. I don’t see riding to space on a giant firework strapped to a hi-tech bomb as an advance. It will provide an interim launch platform so let’s hope it’s safe enough because another tragedy will probably kill the US manned space program stone dead.
It looks like a sewer pipe that will expel even more filth then the previous models.Not impressed.
Wiseguy: I do sense a sewer pipe, but it’s not the rocket.
# wiseguy Says:
August 5th, 2009 at 4:03 am
“It looks like a sewer pipe that will expel even more filth then the previous models.Not impressed.”
Well, you should take that up with NASA then! Oh wait – nobody cares what you think. That’s a bit unfortunate.
Wiseguy: ..and your English sucks. It’s ‘than’, not ‘then’.
Soon we’ll see is Astronaut Buzz is right or not. I believe he said that the vibrations would be too great for Ares I to succeed.
I’m just happy that the construction didn’t fall over from the weight of the dude standing on platform at the top.