spacetoday.net: NASA declares Ares 1-X launch a success

Posted: Thu, Oct 29, 2009, 7:04 AM ET (1104 GMT)
Ares 1-X launch (NASA/KSC)

The suborbital test flight of a prototype of the Ares 1 rocket on Wednesday met or exceeded expectations, NASA officials said. The Ares 1-X rocket lifted off at 11:30 am EDT (1530 GMT) Wednesday from pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, near the end of a four-hour launch window after waiting out weather issues. The rocket reached an altitude of about 45 kilometers before splashing down nearly 240 kilometers downrange. The rocket, nearly 100 meters tall, was designed to test various hardware, operations, and ground systems elements intended for use in the Ares 1 rocket currently under development by NASA. This rocket was similar in size to the Ares 1, but used only a four-segment solid rocket motor for its first stage instead of the five-segment motor planned for the Ares 1, and had a dummy second stage. Project officials said the launch was a success, generating "enormous" amounts of data that will go into the development of the Ares 1. The future of the Ares 1 itself, though, remains uncertain as the White House considers alternative options for NASA's human spaceflight program that do not include the Ares 1.