NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off from NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight.
The test flight was launched from newly modified Launch Complex 39B, and splashdown of the rocket's booster stage was nearly 150 miles downrange.
The 327-foot-tall Ares I-X test vehicle produced 2.6 million pounds of thrust to accelerate the rocket to nearly 3 g's and Mach 4.76, just shy of hypersonic speed. It capped its easterly flight at a suborbital altitude of 150,000 feet after the separation of its first stage, a four-segment solid rocket booster.
Parachutes deployed for recovery of the booster, and the solid rocket motor will be recovered at sea for later inspection. The simulated upper stage, Orion crew module, and launch abort system will not be recovered.
The flight offered an early opportunity to test and prove hardware, facilities, and ground operations. During the flight, a range of performance data was relayed to the ground and also stored in the onboard flight data recorder.
The rocket's 700 sensors gathered information, including assembly and launch operations, separation of the vehicle's first and second stages, controllability and aerodynamics, re-entry and recovery of the first stage, and new vehicle design techniques. The Ares I-X efforts are led by the Ares I-X mission management office of the Constellation Program, based at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, and NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland designed and built the vehicle's upper stage mass simulator. NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., provided aerodynamic characterization, flight test vehicle integration, and the crew module/launch abort system mass simulator.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., with contractor support, provided management for the development of Ares I-X avionics, roll control, and first stage systems.
Kennedy Space Center provided operations and associated ground activities and launch operations.
Contractors for Ares I-X include Alliant Techsystems (ATK) of Salt Lake City for the first-stage solid rocket booster and Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville for the roll control system. Jacobs Engineering of Tullahoma, Tenn., supported by Lockheed Martin of Denver, provided the avionics systems. United Space Alliance of Houston and ATK Launch Systems supported the ground systems and launch operations.
