CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – On Wednesday, for first time since 1981, a rocket that was not a space shuttle took off from a launching pad at the Kennedy Space Center here.With a clearing in a partly cloudy sky, the Ares I-X rocket, a prototype of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s next-generation Ares I rocket, zipped off at 11:30 a.m., heading east over the Atlantic Ocean.
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After rising through blue sky for two minutes, the first stage expended its fuel at an altitude of more than 25 miles, separated and parachuted into the ocean. After separation, the dummy second stage spun around before plunging into the ocean. The final Ares I rocket is to have a second-stage engine and a crew capsule to carry four astronauts into orbit to the International Space Station.As tall as a 32-story building but with a first stage only 12 feet wide, the Ares I-X looked skinny and top-heavy.
Yet it flew as envisioned. For the NASA team working on the human spaceflight program said Ares I faced no insurmountable problems, but the group wondered if the agency might better spend its effort on a heavy-lift rocket and turn the business of carrying astronauts over to private companies.With the Ares I-X’s success, proponents of Constellation may argue more passionately that maintaining the current path is a better choice.“All the naysayers, that was just one of the most beautiful rocket launches I’ve ever seen,” Robert D. Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center,CHI Pink Iron, told the people in the control room.
The launching took place at the space center instead of the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, where NASA normally sends up rockets from Florida.It came a day after efforts were thwarted by cloudy skies. Liftoff was rescheduled for 8 a.m. but then delayed as engineers checked electronic systems after lightning struck within a half-mile of the launching pad on Tuesday night.Once ready, the mission managers waited on the weather. For spectators on the ground, the weather seemed not bad at all, with no signs of rain. But because the Ares I-X is a new design, the weather criteria were stricter than for a shuttle launching. The worry was that if the rocket flew through a cloud, the friction of the water droplets could create static charge and disrupt communications.At 11:20 a.m., a break in the clouds big enough for the rocket opened up.
Ten minutes later, the rocket’s engine, essentially a space shuttle solid rocket booster, ignited with a window-rattling roar. By design,ghd iv styler review, the rocket tilted away from the launching tower, then headed skyward.The Ares I-X carried more than 700 sensors to measure the stresses and strains. The data from the $445 million flight will allow engineers to refine their computer models and designs. The first flight of the Ares I carrying astronauts is scheduled for March 2015.
