Ares I-X
Published on Oct 25, 2009 at 11:07 am.
6 Comments.
Filed under rockets.
If everything works out OK, then NASA will launch a new rocket this coming Tuesday: the Ares I-X. And, if everything works right, I’ll be there to witness it!
The Ares rockets and Orion crew module are supposed to eventually replace the Space Shuttle in NASA’s inventory of craft to ferry astronauts to and from space. The Ares has been the target of quite a lot of criticism, too. There are calls for the project to be scrapped. However, most of those calling for scrapping the Ares project are outside of the space community, and almost all are outside of the field of aviation and rocketry. The most common complaint is, “Why can’t we just use one of the other big rockets that already exist?” Well, the reason is that those rockets are not designed for manned missions. In order to carry humans, rockets and aircraft have to go through a rigorous test procedure, and each and every part has to be separately certified as compliant with those tests. Going back and doing that for an existing rocket would be at least as expensive as building a new one from already certified parts. That is what the Ares is: a rocket built mostly from already certified parts. So, I am not convinced that it would really save money to scrap Ares, and it might even cost more money and more time in the end. Already, we are facing a period of time in which NASA will have no vehicle capable of getting astronauts to and from space. We’ll have to either purchase flights from other nations (Russia) or hope that private companies come up with a space taxi of some sort to get to and from the space station. That is why Ares is important. I only wish that the Constellation Program (the overall program that includes Ares, Orion, the Altair lunar lander, and more) had more money and resources to develop the program faster.
Two Ares rockets are planned. The smaller rocket (and even it is huge!) is the Ares I. The Ares V rocket will be taller, but also much wider. If built, it will be the largest operational rocket ever constructed. The Ares I will stand over 300 feet high. The Ares 1-X currently sitting at Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center is 327 feet high. That makes it the tallest rocket launched from the Cape since the early 1970s, when the last Saturn V rocket launched. Incidentally, the last Saturn V rocket was launched in May 1973 from Launch Pad 39A. Over a week later, a Saturn I-B rocket lifted off from Launch Pad 39B with a crew of three astronauts to man the space station. I think that may have been the last time that two different rockets sat at the launch pads at Launch Complex 39 (Kennedy Space Center). Now, over 36 years later, two different rockets are sitting at launch pads at Launch Complex 39 once again: Ares I-X at Launch Pad 39B and the Space Shuttle Atlantis on Launch Pad 39A for the STS-129 mission. The following photograph catches this historic moment. Click on the photo to get a larger version.
The Ares I-X is the first test flight of the Ares configuration. The first stage of the Ares uses the same type of solid rocket motors that the Space Shuttle uses for its Solid Rocket Boosters. The Space Shuttle uses a stack of 4 solid rocket segments. The Ares uses a stack of 5 solid rocket segments. The second stage uses a J-2X engine, derived from the famous J-2 engines used on the upper stages of the Saturn V rockets. The body of the upper stage is derived from the Space Shuttle external tank. This is a new stage, and though it is derived from existing technology, there are modifications that need to be make, so it is not simply a matter of sticking an engine onto the end of a shuttle external tank. Atop the second stage would be the completely new components: the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its service module and the new Launch Abort System, designed to pull the crew capsule away from the rocket in the event of a catastrophic failure of the rocket. These upper stages are not yet ready for flight.
So, why is the rocket flying on Tuesday if the upper stages are not ready? This first developmental flight of the Ares stack is primarily a test of the first stage and the design of the stack. Remember, the first stage is derived from the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters. These rockets are strapped onto the side of the shuttle’s external tanks. They were not originally designed to fly alone. So, one of the goals of this rocket flight is to test the solid rocket first stage of the stack. Also, the shuttle’s solid rockets only have a nose cone on them. The first stage of the Ares has another rocket on top of it (the second stage) and even more hardware on top of that! So, there is a very real engineering concern here. There should be no serious problem. The rocket should be easy to control, and the rocket segments should have the strength to hold all of this extra weight. Remember, the shuttle’s rockets have helped lift the much heavier Space Shuttle into orbit, and that was strapped to the side of the rockets (an even tougher problem from the point of view of engineering). Still, the rockets have not flown in this configuration before, and so there is always the potential for unforeseen problems. That is why we need this test.
For the Ares I-X flight, the first stage will be a bit scaled down from the full five segment first stage of later Ares flights. This will be essentially a four stage rocket that is a modified shuttle solid rocket booster with an inert fifth segment. The upper stages will consist of dummy stages (though there will be active guidance and thrusters on the dummy second stage). The rocket will take off, reach an altitude of about 130,000 feet and the second stage will deploy as if on an actual orbital mission. Since the second stage rocket will not fire, the stage will then fall into the Atlantic Ocean. After stage separation, momentum will carry the rocket about another 20,000 feet higher before it falls back to Earth. Parachutes will deploy, and the first stage will splash down into the Atlantic Ocean, where a surface ship will retrieve it. There will be sensors on the rocket recording every facet of the rocket operation. The Ares developmental flights will have far more sensors than will fly on the operational missions. Data collected on the flight (upper stage sensors as well as first stage sensors) will then be studied over the next couple of years. With any new engineering design, even a modification of an existing design, there will almost always be something unexpected to turn up. Having the first operational test so early in the project (the full unmanned test stack won’t likely fly for at least five years) allows engineers to study the data from the launch in order to modify the upper stages as needed before they are finished being built. That is the smart way of doing things: test out each part as it is ready. The next Ares launch, the Ares I-Y, is expected in four years, around November of 2013. The Ares I-Y will test the high altitude emergency Launch Abort System. In the mean time, there will be separate tests of the upper components, just not on an Ares stack. A full blown Ares/Orion launch, called the Orion 1 mission, may launch sometime early 2014. That would be the first test including a fully functioning (but unmanned) Orion capsule atop the stack.
Though there will be only a four segment first stage in the Ares I-X flight, the experience for those of us watching the launch should be the same as for a full five segment first stage. The biggest difference will be in how far and high the vehicle flies. I am hoping that everything goes well. I will be leaving for the Cape in a few hours. The rocket has passed its test review, and everything seems go for launch so far from the engineering aspect. Weather, though, may be a problem. The forecast is for clouds. Since this is a test flight, they must have clear weather to observe all aspects of the mission. However, they only need about 15 minutes of clear weather, so there is a decent change of getting that. Yesterday, the mission team estimated Tuesday’s weather as only 40% go. However, Tuesday is still several days away, and things might look up. As I look at the weather, it looks like it may be a bit better, perhaps 50%, but I am not the one making the call. Still, I’ll be there Tuesday and Wednesday to see the launch.
-Astroprof
Images courtesy NASA
Clark on October 25, 2009 at 1:06 pm: 1
“..most of those calling for scrapping the Ares project are outside of the space community, and almost all are outside of the field of aviation and rocketry.”
I have no idea why you believe this. It’s just not true. Quite the opposite. There has been tremendous criticism within the aerospace community of the Ares I/V/Orion architecture. Outside of that community is where most people are unaware of the flaws in that architecture. And most people don’t know how that architecture came about and simply trust that it emerged from NASA studies in a systematic manner.
NASA was in fact going in quite a different direction before Mike Griffin arrived. Admiral Steidle was leading a set of studies that were seriously examining a number of innovative, low cost approaches. Griffin, however, had long pushed for a Shuttle-derived “Stick” style launcher coupled with a heavy lifter. You can, for example, download a study by a Planetary Society sponsored group, which he led prior to going to NASA, that described essentially the same architecture that later became Constellation. Griffin arranged for the quick and dirty 60 day ESAS review that threw out all the work that had been done under Steidle and instead endorsed the architecture that Griffin wanted.
This New Atlantis Journal article, written by a professional aerospace engineer, gives an excellent overview of how the Constellation came about and discusses its many drawbacks:
http://tinyurl.com/ml4zx4
It’s true that most aerospace engineers believe the Constellation hardware could be made to work with enough time and money. But there are certainly many who believe that it is far from cost-effective. The DIRECT project, for example, consists of a few dozen engineers, including many who work at NASA and its contractors, who have spent their spare time over the past few years designing a single launcher architecture that they believe has a chance of surviving the ups and downs of NASA funding. A recent Space News article says Bolden has ordered a study of alternative heavy lifter designs to the Ares V and they will include the DIRECT Jupiter.
“Well, the reason is that those rockets are not designed for manned missions.”
The “human rating” issue is a red herring. Griffin himself in a 2003 Congressional hearing noted that vehicles built to carry billion dollar spacecraft are plenty reliable enough for carrying crews. The human rating term came from the early space age when ICBM rocket technology was being converted for the manned program.
Yes, there are technical issues related to acceleration loads and abort scenarios but these not showstoppers. The ULAlaunch.com website has posted several papers detailing the use of Atlas V and Delta IV for crew launch. Unlike NASA, which has not designed a successful launch vehicle since the 1970s, the engineers at ULA (i.e. from Lockheed-Martin and Boeing) have the knowledge and experience gained from two very successful vehicles to know with high confidence whether those vehicles are suitable for crew transport.
The GAO recently said ~$50B would be needed to develop Ares I/Orion. That’s about 10-20 times more than it took to develop the EELVs and about 100 times more than Falcon 9/Dragon. (Yes, Ares I/Orion are intended for deep space missions and the EELVs need a capsule but that doesn’t justify that much additional cost.) However, even if those $50B in fixed costs are written off, the Augustine report says that the operational cost for each Ares I flight will still be approx. $1B. A lunar mission with Ares V would need billions more. That’s why panel member Jeff Greason said even if the Constellation hardware was handed to NASA today for free, they would have to shut it down, as they did with Saturn V, because they could not afford to operate it.
The Ares I project may survive but it will be as a jobs program, not as a practical tool for spacefaring.
(Regarding Ares I-X, well don’t get me started…
It’s a faux prototype with hardly any hardware in common with the Ares I. It will bring NASA and Constellation some positive publicity and that is its main function.)
Astroprof on October 25, 2009 at 2:27 pm: 2
Clark,
You’ve got some good points. I am a bit leery of the Ares program, and I didn’t like the idea when it was first rolled out. But, I think that we’ve already made the decision to go that way. Changing course now might just further the gap in US spaceflight. However, if private industry can design and successfully build safe rockets capable of doing what Ares is designed to do, and sell them to NASA for less money than building their own rockets, then by all means that is definitely the way to go! But, until that happens, I am backing off of my criticism of the Constellation Program. In the 1950s and 1960s, we could afford to try multiple approaches and take the best one. Now, the politics are different. We need to pick one and go with it. One reason that the Space Shuttle program has lasted so long is that there has been a lot of talk, studies, preliminary work, etc on what is to replace the shuttle, but all of those programs eventually were scrapped in favor of something else. Now, the shuttle flights are stopping, and we don’t have anything quite ready to take its place. I don’t see NASA having the political backing to scrap Ares I and replace it with something else. Maybe something could be done about the Ares V, but I think that we need to keep up the work on Ares I. It’s too late to stop now without hurting NASA in the end.
I’ll also stipulate that the Ares I-X might be a bit of show for publicity to garner support at a critical time politically. Still, there is useful data that can come from the launch. Even if the PR is the main reason for the launch, NASA could use some good advertising right now.
Clark on October 25, 2009 at 6:35 pm: 3
The Augustine panel, which included several who came with very favorable views towards Constellation, nevertheless found that it just isn’t affordable. There is no way the ISS will be de-orbited in 2015. So to support the ISS and the full Constellation development, NASA would need a ~$5B increase in its annual budget. They knew that wasn’t feasible, so they came up with several options if NASA could get at least $3B more. These do not include Ares I. Basically, when choosing between Ares I and a heavy lifter, they chose the latter.
Yes, there is something like $8B in sunk costs in Constellation, mostly Ares I and Orion. However, the panel did not see that this justifies spending another $42B to finish these systems when there are significantly cheaper alternatives going forward from here.
“we could afford to try multiple approaches and take the best one. Now, the politics are different. We need to pick one and go with it.”
I definitely agree that NASA’s funding is limited and yet the best way to find a solution to a complex problem like an exploration architecture is to try multiple approaches. The way out of this conundrum is not to let Mike Griffin choose the one and only NASA way but to let multiple entrants offer low cost approaches and have them compete for fixed price, milestone driven contracts the way the COTS program worked for ISS cargo delivery. You may remember that the original Steidle plan, in fact, was to have a fly-off between at least two systems for the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle) as it was called.
I have an obvious NewSpace bias, but I think its clear that SpaceX is doing a tremendous job. For less than $300M, NASA is getting a very capable service for cargo delivery and return. For another $300M, SpaceX could add a Launch Escape System for crew delivery. That is less than the cost of Ares I-X.
Despite all that, however, I would not want SpaceX to be the only one to get a crew transport contract. A competition with EELV systems (and other viable entrants) would be essential for a robust program. Robert Bigelow also wants redundant transport options for bringing cargo and crew to his habitats.
NASA’s budget for manned (and unmanned for that matter) is going to be quite limited for many years. (I’ll be surprised if gets even a billion more per year.) To continue to advance towards its exploration goals, the agency simply will have to take chances on low cost approaches even though they have higher technical risk and require painful changes to its culture. Commercial LEO launch services, propellant depots, and other low cost components can provide a tremendously capable spacefaring infrastructure within the agency’s budget.
Thomas Lee Elifritz on October 25, 2009 at 7:21 pm: 4
Ares 1 - the worlds shittiest rocket, and yet American retards like you still defend it? How can that be? I guess a college degree just ain’t worth shit anymore.
Astroprof on October 25, 2009 at 11:11 pm: 5
Thomas, at least at college degree taught me how to disagree with someone without resorting to insults. By insulting someone, you will NEVER make them want to change their mind.
Clark, I am no great fan of the Ares, but I feel that NASA would take a major PR hit right now and lose support in Congress if they back out now. I’ve worked in the government sector enough to know that if they show ANY sign of not knowing how best to proceed, then they will lose support, and funding. As underfunded as they are, that would be very bad for everyone. The Ares may not be a good idea, but neither was the current design of the Space Shuttle, nor the ISS. Government agencies work at the whim of politicians, most of whom don’t know much about what they are funding or not funding.
I am a great fan of private companies making inroads into the launch business. And, if someone can develop a safe alternative to the Ares/Orion configuration then they should go for it. NASA can always pay for the flights. If NASA were to abandon Ares on its own, though, then there could be political ramifications that may hurt the agency. We don’t want to give NASA a political black eye when they are already losing congressional support.
Tanner Lovelace on April 16, 2010 at 10:17 pm: 6
You said: “I think that may have been the last time that two different rockets sat at the launch pads at Launch Complex 39 (Kennedy Space Center).”
Nope, in September 2008 there were 2 space shuttles on the launch pads at the same time. This was because they had a backup ready to go in case there was some problem with the first shuttle while it was repairing the Hubble telescope. Looks like there’s a picture here - http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum30/HTML/000736.html