Ares I-X is the first test vehicle in the Ares I development program for future human spaceflight. On October 27th, the Ares I-X vehicle will be used for a suborbital test flight and will be similar in shape, weight and size to the planned configuration of later Ares I vehicles.
The Ares I-X flight profile will closely approximate the flight conditions that Ares I will experience through Mach 4.5, at an altitude of about 130,000 feet.
Provided the Ares I vehicle design is not cancelled after the options presented by the Augustine Review, it is currently NASA's launch vehicle of choice to carry the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. On Monday morning, the Ares I-X vehicle will roll out to launch pad 39B.
3 comments:
It won't be cancelled. Back to work.
Hi Damaris,
Do you know the duration of the flight from liftoff to the SRB splashdown. I have not found this stated in any of the Ares-1X NASA sites.
Thank you.
Anthony Cook
Griffith Observatory
Hi Anthony! The flight duration from lift off to splashdown of the SRB would not be too different from that of the current configuration of shuttle.
For both shuttle and Ares I-X, the SRB will reach an altitude of approximately 150,000 feet.
For shuttle, separation usually occurs about 125 seconds (~2 minutes) after launch. Based on the figure I found and posted above, the Ares I-X flight profile shows that the SRB separation will occur about 270 seconds (4.5 minutes) after launch.
Then for splashdown we could probably estimate around 5 minutes or so.
Here's a pretty good fact sheet on the SRB timeline for shuttle: http://www.spaceline.org/rocketsum/solid-rocket-boosters.html
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