NASA Stages Key Test In Advance of Ares 1X

NASA advanced its bid to field the Ares 1 rocket this week as the agency and contractor Alliant Techsystems successfully tested a critical stage separation system being readied for an inaugural flight test at Kennedy Space Center later this year.

The full-scale test at Promontory, Utah, simulated the separation of the Ares 1 first stage from the rest of the rocket followed by the deployment of a parachute recovery system designed to lower the spent first stage into the Atlantic Ocean. Recovery ships then will retrieve the stage and return it to KSC for extensive post-flight inspections and analyses.

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The $360 million Ares 1X test flight is tentatively scheduled to launch July 11 from pad 39B at KSC. But NASA is keeping that pad "shuttle ready" in case a mission to rescue a Hubble Space Telescope servicing crew is required in May.

NASA would have to launch both the Hubble servicing flight and the rescue mission, if required, from pad 39A to maintain the July 11 launch date for Ares 1X. A decision to proceed with either "single-pad" or "dual-pad" operations for the Hubble flight and the rescue mission is expected in mid-March.

The Ares 1X test flight will employ a four-segment shuttle booster topped with a dummy fifth segment and mock-ups that simulate the mass and outer mold line of an Ares 1 second stage, Orion spacecraft and launch abort system.

Standing 321 feet tall, the 1X rocket to an altitude of about 25 miles during a two-minute powered flight. Then a linear-shaped charge will ignite to seperate the first stage of the test rocket from its upper stage before the parachute system is deployed.

The first stage will seperate at the rocket's frustum, a conical piece of hardware that connects the slender shuttle solid rocket booster with its larger-diameter second stage.

"The Ares I-X team is pleased with the completion of this key test that will provide important data leading up to the launch of the Ares I-X flight," Steve Davis, deputy mission manager for the Ares I-X test flight at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said in a news release.

The parachute system will deploy at an altitude of 15,000 feet. A nose cone within the frustum will be jettisoned, deploying a pilot parachute. The pilot chute, in turn, will deploy a drogue chute, which will hoist the booster to a vertical orientation and slow it down prior to the deployment of the system's main parachute.

When the falling stage reaches an altitude of about 4,000 feet, the frustum and a forward skirt extension assembly will separate, pulling out three main chutes in the process. The test Thursday demonstrated the ignition of the linear-shaped charge, which cleanly severed an Ares 1X frustum from its forward skirt extension. Sensors on the test article measured the shock created by the ignition. NASA will use the data gathered to prepare for the actual Ares 1X test flight.

The forward skirt extension for the Ares 1X test flight already is at KSC. It is designed to withstand the structural loads of the first stage while supporting the weight of the larger-diameter upper stage.

Twelve feet in diameter, the single solid piece of aluminum is six feet long and houses the three main chutes. Mike Kahn, executive vice president of ATK Space Systems, said in a statement that the test was considered an important milestone because it validated preparatory work being done in advance of the Ares 1X test flight.

Said Kahn: "The program is one step closer to the flight test of Ares I-X."