NASA’s Ares I-X prototype rocket has been successfully launched from Florida. Aimed to replace the old space shuttle, the 100m tall prototype rocketed into the air from the Kennedy Space Centre at 1530 GMT.
NASA’s first rocket for almost three decades, the Ares I-X was launched with over 700 sensors so that engineers could monitor controls, performance and aerodynamics for the short two minute flight. Associate administrator at NASA’s headquarters, Doug Cooke explained “This is a huge step forward for Nasa’s exploration goals. Ares I-X provides Nasa with an enormous amount of data that will be used to improve the design and safety of the next generation of American spaceflight vehicles – vehicles that could again take humans beyond low Earth orbit.”
The upper stage of the rocket, which would ordinarily hold the crew capsule, in the Ares I-X was a fully formed dummy to simulate the weight and shape that would be used for launching astronauts into space. Breaking apart after the flight, whilst the dummy section was destroyed upon impact with the sea, the booster section with its sensors was enabled with parachutes so that once it landed in the Atlantic it could be recovered by retrieval boats.
Due to launch on Tuesday, bad weather conditions delayed the procedure for the day. Meanwhile the future of the Ares I-X is in doubt after a panel assessing human spaceflight provided a number of alternative methods to launching astronauts.
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Why don’t NASA just use Vandenberg Air Force Base to launch all space shuttle? The weather at VAFB is always consistent and there is no lighting or hurricane.