Posted on 09/07/2006 7:20:37 PM PDT by KevinDavis
With NASA’s announcement that aerospace firm Lockheed Martin will build its shuttle successor Orion, the agency is forging ahead with a test flight plan for the rockets to launch those future vehicles spaceward.
NASA is targeting April 2009 to test the first stage of its Ares 1 rocket, a five-segment booster evolved from its four-segment solid rocket boosters (SRBs) used to launch space shuttles into orbit. The rocket will launch astronaut crews into orbit to either dock at the International Space Station (ISS) or press onward to the Moon – though the latter would require rendezvous with a lunar lander and Earth Departure Stage launched by the planned heavy-lift Ares 5 rocket.
“It’s a proof of concept that we’re going to take this solid rocket motor that was designed for the shuttle, and we’re going to use it in this new application,” said Jeff Hanley, manager of NASA’s Constellation program. “We’re going to look at the dynamics at the separations between the first stage and a facsimile of the upper stage.”
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Add me pls
the first stage of its Ares 1 rocket, a five-segment booster evolved from its four-segment solid rocket boosters (SRBs)... will launch astronaut crews into orbit to either dock at the International Space Station (ISS) or press onward to the Moon – though the latter would require rendezvous with a lunar lander and Earth Departure Stage launched by the planned heavy-lift Ares 5 rocket.Great. Now we're following the proposal of Sergei Korolev, mastermind of the N1 booster and Soviet moon program.
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