Ares I-X Flight Test Could Move to Late August

The first flight test of the moon rocket that NASA hopes will replace the space shuttle may slip to late August, according to agency officials.

Some preparations for the Ares I-X flight test, which had been tentatively targeted for launch July 11 from Kennedy Space Center, can't continue until after shuttle Atlantis completes its May 12 Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.

During that mission, Endeavour will be standing by on launch pad 39B - the same pad from which Ares I-X will blast off - in case it's needed for a rescue flight.

NASA had considered stationing Endeavour in the Vehicle Assembly Building so it could turn over pad 39B to the Ares I-X team sooner, so more modifications necessary for the new rocket could proceed. Doing so would have delayed nine remaining shuttle flights by about a month.

But given the safety benefits of using both pads, the progress already made modifying pad 39B and the readiness of Ares I-X, the decision was made to proceed with shuttles on both pads as originally planned.

"We were able to get a lot of work done at the pad that still allows us to launch an orbiter off of that," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for Space Operations, during a briefing at KSC that followed Discovery's landing Saturday. "We think it's more of our normal plan to have the orbiter out at the pad. It gives us a little more robustness from a crew standpoint."

Gerstenmaier said the impact to Ares I-X would likely be three to four weeks, placing the launch in late July or early August, which "isn't too big of an impact to them."

But a spokesman at NASA headquarters said this week that the decision's impact is estimated to mean a move toward the end of August, though no date has been set yet.

"Detailed replanning and an official change to the launch date is in work by the I-X team, the Constellation Program, and the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate," spokesman Gray Hautaluoma wrote in an e-mail.

Completed modifications to pad 39B so far include the erection of three 600-foot-tall lightning towers and installation of an access arm on the Rotating Service Structure.

NASA plans to retire the shuttle by the end of next year, launching each mission from pad 39A. The first manned flights of Ares I, which is intended to eventually return astronauts to the moon, are tentatively targeted for 2015.

IMAGE NOTE: A 2008 concept image shows the Ares I crew launch vehicle on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Image credit: NASA/MSFC