Pad work continues ahead of Ares flight test

While a presidential panel reviews the future of NASA's human spaceflight program, work continues to renovate a launch pad for the first flight test of the rocket being designed to replace the space shuttle.

Over the weekend at Kennedy Space Center, workers removed the walkway that 53 shuttle crews traversed to enter their spaceship for launches from pad 39B between 1986 and 2006.

The 64,000-pound, 65-foot orbiter access arm, which includes the "white room" that is the astronauts' last stop before boarding the shuttle, was located at the pad's 195-foot level.

NASA officials said the arm was destined for display down the road at the KSC Visitor Complex, along with another one that held a "beanie cap" atop shuttle external fuel tanks to help vent gaseous oxygen.

The gaseous oxygen vent arm was removed earlier this month from between the pad's 207-foot and 227-foot levels.

The renovations are needed so the pad can launch a prototype of NASA's Ares I rocket that is expected to fly no earlier than Aug. 30.

The $360-million flight test, called Ares I-X, is intended to collect data on the vehicle's flight control system performance and flight dynamics.

The 321-foot-tall Ares I-X rocket includes a four-segment shuttle solid rocket booster with a dummy fifth segment, and simulations of the liquid-fueled upper stage, Orion crew capsule and launch abort system.

The vehicle is being prepared for stacking at KSC's 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building.

Other work at pad 39B has included the erection of three 600-foot-tall lightning towers to protect the tall, narrow Ares rockets.

The most significant work planned over the next month is the installation of two stabilization arms that will clamp on to the test rocket below its simulated upper stage. New platforms are also being added.

Arex I-X is the first of three planned flight tests before a crew would fly atop the rocket, which is targeted no sooner than March 2015.

Additional pad modifications would be made before human flights of the Ares I rockets.

Endeavour was the last shuttle to occupy pad 39B, where it stood ready to fly a rescue mission if Atlantis suffered irreparable damage during its trip to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Endeavour was rolled around to pad 39A on May 31 in preparation for its 16-day STS-127 mission to the International Space Station. After launch scrubs on June 13 and June 17 because of a gaseous hydrogen leak, the launch was rescheduled for July 11.

Eight more shuttle flights are scheduled before the end of next year before NASA plans to retire the three-orbiter fleet.

The human spaceflight review panel led by former Lockheed Martin Corp. CEO Norman Augustine is expected to submit recommendations to President Obama by August.

The recommendations will likely determine whether NASA proceeds with work on Ares I and a larger cargo launcher, or whether it must shift to alternative designs.

The panel has tentatively scheduled a public meeting on the Space Coast for July 30. You can out the panel's Web site and submit input here.

IMAGE NOTE: Click the images to fully enlarge them. On Saturday at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B, a crane lowers the orbiter access arm, which ends in the White Room, toward the ground. The arm is being removed from the FSS for the pad's conversion as launch site for the Constellation Program's Ares I-X. The launch of the Ares I-X flight test is targeted for August 2009. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett. Below, on June 3, workers checked the "beanie cap" and the gaseous oxygen vent arm removed from Launch Pad 39B's fixed service structure before they are taken away on the transporter. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann