Florida: NASA`s lofty new rocket arrived at the launching pad Tuesday for a test flight next week that comes at a time when the future of the country`s spaceflight program is up in the air.
It`s the first time in 34 years that a rocket other than the space shuttle has stood at Launch Pad 39-B. NASA modified the pad for this rocket, which is supposed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon.
But the White House may scrap those plans. A panel of aerospace experts that provided President Barack Obama with a list of possible exploration options is issuing its final report later this week.
The experimental Ares I rocket — taller than the Statue of Liberty — spent all night traveling from the hangar to the pad. The four-mile trip took more than seven hours.
The test vehicle will blast off next Tuesday on a 2 1/2-minute ballistic flight to demonstrate how the partial first stage performs. It`s costing NASA $445 million.
Thin and exceptionally tall at 327 feet, the Ares I-X looks like what will carry astronauts into orbit, possibly by 2015. But much of it is a mock-up, and no person or payload will be on board.
The shuttle, by contrast, is 184 feet tall. The Saturn V rockets that carried men to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s were a record-setting 363 feet.
Shuttle program manager John Shannon said the Ares I-X is safe enough to launch even though Atlantis is just 1 1/2 miles away on the other pad. The impact zone if there is a launch explosion "just barely clips by" the pad holding Atlantis, he said.
He noted that there`s proven technology in the Ares` first-stage booster. It`s the same type of solid rocket booster used to propel space shuttles.
The booster will parachute into the Atlantic and be retrieved for analysis. The rest of the rocket — all false pieces weighted with ballast — will crash, uncontrolled, into the ocean.
The rocket is rigged with hundreds of sensors.
"My personal opinion is that if we really thought that I-X was going to have a problem, that we`re not ready to launch it, even on a test flight," Shannon said late last week.
Atlantis, meanwhile, is scheduled to lift off Nov. 16 on a delivery mission to the International Space Station. On Monday, NASA delayed the shuttle flight four days to improve the chances of launching the Ares I-X next week. The same team at Kennedy Space Center will handle both launches.
"It`s neat to see where we`re going next, what the next step will be, and that when we stop flying the shuttle at some future point, that it`s not the end, but we`ll have the beginning," Atlantis` commander Charles Hobaugh said from the shuttle pad.
Six shuttle flights remain, all to the space station, and should be completed by the end of next year.
Bureau Report