Ares 1X Hardware Arrives At KSC

The first Ares 1X hardware delivered from elsewhere in the nation is at Kennedy Space Center, where NASA is pressing ahead with plans for the first test flight of a next-generation moon rocket.

The ballast assemblies for the Upper Stage Simulator of the Ares 1X test rocket arrived a week ago today and now sit in High Bay No. 4 in the Vehicle Assembly Building.

"The ballasts are just weight," said KSC spokeswoman Amber Philman. "They will just mimic the mass of the fuel" in the Ares 1 second stage.

The Ares 1X test rocket will be a mix of flight hardware and mock-ups: a four-segment shuttle solid rocket booster topped with a fifth spacer segment and mock-ups of the Ares 1 second stage, Orion crew capsule and a launch abort system.

The mass simulators will sport outer mold lines that are aerodynamically exact copies of the Ares 1 rocket components and Orion spacecraft.

The goal of the test flight is to determine whether the first-stage flight control system will keep the rocket on course -- and intact -- during the crucial first two minutes of flight.

The ballast assemblies will be installed within the No. 1 and No. 7 sections of the Upper Stage Simulator.

Take a look at this highly detailed NASA drawing (14.5 MB) of the Ares 1X test vehicle to see just where they will fit in the scheme of things: Ares 1X Drawing.

The ballast delivery was the first in a series that will lead to launch of the $320 million test flight some time next year. Eleven components that make up the Ares 1X Upper Stage Simulator left a port near NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland Wednesday and are sailing down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River.

Onboard the Delta Mariner - the mega-mover that delivers Delta 4 rocket parts to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station - the components will move into the Gulf of Mexico and then the Atlantic Ocean before arriving at Port Canaveral around Nov. 3.

The Ares 1X Forward Skirt Extension Assembly, which is being manufactured at Major Tool & Machine Inc., in Indianapolis, Ind., is expected to arrive at Port Canaveral that same week.

Mock-ups of the Orion crew capsule and the Launch Abort System are expected to arrive in December, and the final sections of the Ares 1X first-stage booster should be at KSC in January.

The Ares 1X mission will be the first of four test flights slated to be carried out under a $1.8 billion contract to build the rocket's first stage: a five-segment solid rocket booster derived from the shuttle system.

NASA is targeting April 15 for the flight, but the date likely will be pushed back as a result in a delay in the launch of Atlantis on a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.

Atlantis is stacked atop the mobile launcher platform the Ares 1X rocket will be erected on. The Ares 1X is to launch from KSC's pad 39B, but modifications cannot be finished until after the Hubble mission.

NASA is keeping the pad "shuttle ready" in case Atlantis is critically damaged during the Hubble mission. A second shuttle will be perched on pad 39B when Atlantis launches just in case a rescue mission becomes a must.

NASA hopes to launch the Hubble mission for February. The next opportunity would come in May. A more realistic target for the Ares 1X flight will be set once Hubble plans are firmed up.

ABOUT THE IMAGES: Click to enlarge and save the NASA images, which show workers lifting the Ares IX ballast assemblies off a truck in High Bay No. 4 of the Vehicle Assembly Building. You can also click the enlarged images to get even bigger views. The ballast assemblies will be installed in the No. 1 and No. 7 segments of an Upper Stage Simulator, parts of which are enroute to Kennedy Space Center right now. You can check out the Ares 1X drawing above to see where the assemblies will fit. The ballasts will mimic the mass of the fuel in the Ares 1 second stage. Their total weight is approximately 160,000 pounds. The Ares 1X test flight will take place sometime in 2009. Photo crdeits: NASA/Kim Shiflett.