NASA Drops Ares I-Y Flight-test

Aviation Week ^ | Nov 4, 2009 | Frank Morring, Jr.

[Yo-Yo]

NASA's Constellation Program has recommended dropping a planned follow-on to last week's successful Ares I-X flight-test because it doesn't have the funding necessary to get an upper stage engine ready in time.

Instead, the Ares I-X engineering team will study the costs and benefits of going ahead with a 2012 launch previously dubbed "Ares I-X prime" that would flight-test a full five-segment Ares I solid-fuel first stage and the Orion crew exploration vehicle launch abort system at high altitude, according to Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley.

Hanley said on Nov. 3 he has recommended to NASA headquarters that the Ares I-Y test planned for March 2014 be canceled because the J-2X engine needed to propel the upper stage won't be ready in time to support that test date. The problem is money, he said.

"Because of the cost-constrained environment that we've been in, I just cannot get an engine to that vehicle soon enough," Hanley said.

"The engine has to be available months in advance of that to be integrated with the stage and the engine and stage itself tested."

Bob Ess, the Ares I-X mission manager, will oversee the I-X prime study. Expected to take about two months, the study will apply the lessons learned from the Oct. 28 Ares I-X test to a more elaborate flight that also will test the Ares I stage separation system and a water landing and recovery of a higher fidelity Orion capsule than the boilerplate version that flew last week (Aerospace DAILY, Oct. 29).

The test scenario would have the five-segment first stage fly a nominal ascent, with a simulated upper stage ignition failure. The Orion launch abort system would pull the capsule free of the mass-simulated upper stage, and the capsule would parachute back into the ocean.

The test also would give NASA another chance to test the parachute system that failed to deploy fully on the Ares I-X test. Hanley said the test article's active first stage - a four-segment shuttle solid-fuel booster and a simulated fifth segment - went into its planned tumble after separation, and deployed its drogue chute nominally.

But when the three main chutes pulled out, the risers on one of them broke and the chute deflated. The whipping risers fouled a second chute, which only inflated about halfway, Hanley said.

As a result, the recovery system dropped the first-stage nozzle much closer to the water than planned, and the stage splashed down so hard that it probably would not have been reusable had that been required.

Otherwise, Hanley said, the I-X test demonstrated that the long, skinny "single-stick" configuration can be controlled by Ares I flight software, and generated plenty of data for future modeling with its 700-plus instruments. Thrust oscillation as the solid-fuel rocket neared burnout, which worst-case modeling once posed as a serious crew threat, was comparable to the much lower levels measured on shuttle launches, he said.

Given the space policy review ongoing at the White House, which may wind up canceling the Ares I program in favor of a less expensive approach, the $445 million I-X test and the follow-on I-X prime study may turn out to be moot, at least as a source of data directly applicable to a final Ares I design. Even so, the Constellation Program continues to work toward a first flight of the Ares I with a full-up Orion on top in September 2014.

Hanley said his program is following the guidance he received from presidential science advisor John Holdren when the human-spaceflight review panel headed by Norman Augustine was created last summer.

"I have not been given any guidance to suggest that I should be throttling back or doing anything different," Hanley said. "We learned that this configuration can perform quite well. I'm very pleased with where we stand right now."

[Yo-Yo]

Given the space policy review ongoing at the White House, which may wind up canceling the Ares I program in favor of a less expensive approach,...

I wouldn't be surprised if Ares gets cancelled altogether, and the US is left without any means to get into space.

[cripplecreek]

That’s what happens when you have a president who wants the 3rd world to have the upper hand.

[Brett66]

I think a few private companies will be able to provide us with a means of resupplying the ISS as well as transporting crew to space. Ares isn’t needed.

[Frantzie]

LOL! POS hayseed Dem Senator Bill Nelson aka NASA poverty pimp getting punked by Obama. Nelson the doofus is all for ObamaCare.

People voted for this when they voted for Obama.

[Yo-Yo]

I think a few private companies will be able to provide us with a means of resupplying the ISS as well as transporting crew to space. Ares isn’t needed.

There may be one or two companies like SpaceX that end up delivering small quantities to the ISS via the NASA COTS program, but nothing they build will ever be man-rated without an Ares-like budget.

[Brett66]

Not even the shuttle is man-rated, it’s just an arbitrary set of requirements meant to protect certain programs.

[PIF]

“That’s what happens when you have a president who wants the 3rd world to have the upper hand.”

That’s what happens when you have a president who wants to be part of the 3rd world.