Ares 1-X Ready On Pad, Launch Set For 1200 GMT

DynaSoar writes "NASA's new Ares I-X rocket is undergoing final preparations for its planned launch test Tuesday, October 27. Launch time is scheduled for 8 AM EDT (1200 GMT). As of noon Monday it appeared that there was a 60% chance of showers and/or high altitude clouds interfering. However, the launch has a an eight hour window of opportunity through 2000 GMT, and would require only 10 minutes of clear skies within that time to fly. Of interest to engineering types, both those who favor the new vehicle's design and its critics, will be to see whether the predicted linear 'pogo stick' oscillation will occur, and whether the dampening design built into it prevents damaging and possibly destructive shaking. Extensive coverage is being presented by Space.com; for NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit nasa.gov/ntv." Update 15:37 GMT by timothy: The weather did not cooperate; today's planned launch has been scrubbed.

Comments

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

As a demonstration of US technical prowess, Ares I is pathetic; its got similar capabilities to Saturn I and took much longer to develop. It anything its a demonstration of US decline...

I agree. NASA's budget is spiralling downwards, and they can barely keep the shuttle going. The Ares programme isn't even sure to be completed (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,459465,00.html).

Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[blackchiney]

I'm watching the stream now of them assembling the Ares and I must say the VAB is the most impressive building I've ever seen. I got to tour the inside (way back in the early 90s) and the amount of empty space available, inside a building that can withstand hurricane force winds. It is truly mind-boggling.

Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[qmaqdk]

I'm watching the stream now of them assembling the Ares and I must say the VAB is the most impressive building I've ever seen. I got to tour the inside (way back in the early 90s) and the amount of empty space available, inside a building that can withstand hurricane force winds. It is truly mind-boggling.

I've always wondered about that building. Why is it so much better to do the assembly vertically, rather than doing it horizontally and then raising the vehicle afterwards?

Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[Angostura]

Can you imagine the lateral stress on the structure if you attempted to build it horizontally and then hoist? I suspect the engineering challenge involved in building a machine that would give sufficient support along the full length of a multi-story structure as it was raised to vertical would be substantially greater than the challenge of constructing a tall, hurricane resistant building.

Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[Richard_at_work]

Because you can build lighter structures if you assume that certain loadings can be rejected - if you assemble it horizontally, then the joins and internal support structures must be strengthened to support the dyanmic weight in the raising of the entire structure, rather than just supporting the weight of the structures above it in a static way.

Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[MichaelSmith]

Most launch vehicles are optimised to the point where they are basically balloons. They can't support themselves unless their tanks are pressurised and then only in one direction.

I read that US engineers watched with amazement when a Russian booster was winched off a truck at an air show supported horizontally by two cables, one at either end.

Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[blackchiney]

If they did it circular, like the Gerkin tower in London, the wind shear actually twists the building like a rope. So you would have to get into more exotic support systems. Building it square means you can use regular beams for crossbracing.

Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[maxume]

Was it "How did they do that?" amazement, or was it "Why did they do that?" amazement?

Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane

[evanbd]

Most launch vehicles are optimised to the point where they are basically balloons. They can't support themselves unless their tanks are pressurised and then only in one direction.

I read that US engineers watched with amazement when a Russian booster was winched off a truck at an air show supported horizontally by two cables, one at either end.

Actually, that is *not* true in general. It was true for the original Atlas, and is true for the Centaur high-energy upper stage, but most other modern launchers avoid balloon tanks. Most modern designs are very fragile, but self-supporting when unpressurized. That doesn't mean you can hoist them any way you please, but it's still a vast improvement in ease of handling. One of the requirements on the Shuttle External Tank design was that it not be a balloon tank. It was later discovered (to much embarrassment and annoyance) that the ET is self-supporting when empty or full, but that there is a partially-full intermediate range where it isn't, so it has to be filled while pressurized.

Some smaller launchers are assembled horizontally; in particular, SpaceX's Falcon I and Falcon 9 are. They're still fairly fragile, but they're closer to the Russian design approach in a variety of ways. Trading more structural margin, and hence lower payload fraction, for easier operations and hence lower cost per payload mass is one of those.

More NasaTV Feeds and launch data

[agentgonzo]

NasaTV Feeds at different resolutions:
100k/s, 320/240
200k/s, 320/240
500k/s, 480x360(I think)
1200k/s, 640/480
All Windows Media format

Real media format
Quicktime

Launch data

Re:More NasaTV Feeds and launch data

[cpscotti]

Fun thing is... these links broadcasting show the following string on the bottom on "Windows Media Player": "NASA Space Shuttle Launch"

Question for those in-the-know

[blind biker]

What is going to happen with the Ares V? I heard rumors about it being scrapped. I hope they were wrong?

Re:Question for those in-the-know

[Nyeerrmm]

The Augustine commission offered the administration about 10 options, some of which continue Ares V development, while others don't. All options that remain within the current budget (not the extra $3B required to do anything impressive according to the report) continue Ares V development.

However, all of the options presented push for a heavy lift capability. Other options include
- 'Ares V Lite': a lower-performance version of Ares V that would be human rated and could potentially reduce development costs primarily by eliminating the need for Ares 1
- Shuttle-derived: Either a sidemount cargo vehicle (probably requiring something like an Ares 1 for crew launch), or a top-mount shuttle derived design like Jupiter. These would be less capable than Ares V, but still powerful and potentially cheaper -- you could achieve a lunar mission with 2 or 3 launches.
- EELVs: Creating larger Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles from the Delta or Atlas family. These would be the least capable. These are also the biggest question mark because cost savings would come in a large part from a restructuring of rocket development to a DoD style model, where contractors are given requirements, not designs.

All of these, in combination with various targets and schedules were analyzed by the committee. None of the options comes out as a clear winner as cheaper or better, since Ares V has some considerable sunk costs that make its cheaper relative to the others, while designing even a sidemount cargo pod is more expensive than some probably think. Personally I like EELVs because it forces a change in the way business is done, but thats me.

Re:I'm a rocket, man!

[mikael_j]

Sadly I suspect that the one thing that would really get NASA and ESA some serious funding would be if say, Pakistan, India and China all started attempts at building military space stations, especially China since they have the resources coupled with a "Just get it up there right now!" attitude similar to that of the soviets.

It's not so easy to sit back and relax when some other guy decides that you can just train more astronauts if a few die if it means you get there first.

/Mikael

Number one in what exactly?

[nietsch]

This 'new' rocket is basically a solid booster from the space shuttle, that needs to be extended with a 5th segment, but it now flies with a 5th dummy segment. On top of that is more dummy weight. This is just a test of an existing and older booster. Now why do you think there is some kind of competition in rocketry that the US can be number one in? Or are you just happy you or your parents paid taxes for this upcoming show?
Or am I a 'hater' because I a a little sceptic about this project of NASA because you cannot understand discourse? Personally, I am much more impressed with SpaceX and Armadillo, who seem to come up with nice projects for much less money. Wasn't there a new SpaceX big rocket on the launchpad soon?

Re:Number one in what exactly?

[zach_the_lizard]

Probably not. I think that, even if the rocket explodes before takeoff, it's money better spent than all that money spent on bailouts.

Re:Number one in what exactly?

[damburger]

SpaceX is yet to really prove themselves as a launch company, let alone Armadillo. You want a low-cost heavy lift launch, you go to Russia and buy a Proton, simple as that.

Re:Number one in what exactly?

[mustafap]

>I'm pretty sure that Congress could find a lot of other uses for that half billion dollars

Yea, think of all the coke the bankers could buy with handouts from half a billion dollars.

Vortex shedding

[AliasMarlowe]

A cylindrical structure is subject to unstable wake flows, where small asymmetries in the flows around the structure lead to alternating vortices behind it. This is commonly termed vortex shedding, and leads to substantial lateral loads which vary fairly quickly and may cause resonance problems in the structure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_shedding. That's why tall smokestacks nowadays usually have corkscrew fins - to deliberately introduce turbulence, so that the load is less variable and resonant load frequencies have negligible amplitudes.

Re:I'm a rocket, man!

[Big Hairy Ian]

Didn't work when the Russians had Salute's 5, 6, 7 and Mir or were you asleep during the last 50 years?

Solid Rocket Vibrations Are Not Pogo

[jstults]

The vibrations that are commonly called 'pogo' in big rockets are caused by a feedback / resonance of thrust oscillations with inlet pressure of the turbopumps, see this extensive discussion. Pogo is fixed by adding dampers to the propellant lines. Ares I, like every big solid, has combustion instabilities that cause thrust oscillations, but there's no feedback like in a liquid rocket. Only danger is hitting one of the structural resonances and ringing the rocket like a bell (and possibly causing the structure to 'diverge').

Re:Solid Rocket Vibrations Are Not Pogo

[turing_m]

Never hearing the term before, it very succinctly communicates the situation. I must say the mental image is also quite pleasant. Well done! ~the chemical engineering student who uses numerical methods to solve large problems

I suspect that the term "blow up" would be just as apt, though a little less British in the degree of understatement.

Re:Solid Rocket Vibrations Are Not Pogo

[evanbd]

Never hearing the term before, it very succinctly communicates the situation. I must say the mental image is also quite pleasant. Well done! ~the chemical engineering student who uses numerical methods to solve large problems

I suspect that the term "blow up" would be just as apt, though a little less British in the degree of understatement.

Rocket engineers are fond of that form of understatement. I've also heard "unscheduled disassembly", and I'm particularly fond of "turbine-rich exhaust".

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but your "lolz" make you unqualified to comment on any serious matter and be taken seriously.

What is the point?

[new death barbie]

Why is NASA so bent on using the solid-fuel boosters, when the military already has the much cheaper Delta iV Heavy and Atlas V rockets that have been proven?

Re:What is the point?

[icebrain]

Well, Delta and Atlas don't keep former shuttle employees busy. And everyone knows that reusing large components of something entirely different will make the end result cheaper... because you never have to do rework and the reused components are always optimal for the design.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'll wipe up the extra sarcasm I spilled there...

Re:What is the point?

[demachina]

Solid-fuel boosters keep jobs in the state of Utah so you can count on Orrin Hatch, very powerful senator from Utah supporting NASA's budget....

Someone said on a previous thread the Ares 1 has such a goofy look because the SRB's built in Utah have to pass through a train tunnel so they can't be increased in diameter which is why it looks so top heavy.

There is certainly a benefit to SRB's in that you don't have all the complexities of cryogenic fuels, and having to fuel before launch. That's why the Air Force uses them in ICBM's, they are extremely simple to launch. They are also somewhat safer than liquid fuels in some respects. It certainly remains to be seen if they will work the way NASA is trying to use them, especially how bad the vibration will be.

It certainly would have been better if NASA could have finished the SRB facility in Mississippi, which was killed twice, so they could be shipped to Kennedy on barges and the diameter constraints would have been removed. I wager Utah's senators helped kill it to keep the jobs in Utah.

NASA's manned space program is 90% jobs program, 10% space program at this point, in case you hadn't noticed.

Re:What is the point?

[FleaPlus]

There is certainly a benefit to SRB's in that you don't have all the complexities of cryogenic fuels, and having to fuel before launch. That's why the Air Force uses them in ICBM's, they are extremely simple to launch. They are also somewhat safer than liquid fuels in some respects. It certainly remains to be seen if they will work the way NASA is trying to use them, especially how bad the vibration will be.

On the other hand, there's plenty of ways that SRBs are also more dangerous. Pretty much the only failure modes SRBs have are catastrophic explosions, and since you can't shut them off like you can with liquid rockets it makes it rather difficult to launch-escape if something goes wrong. It's also considerably more difficult to handle for the ground personnel, as summarized well in this blog post by "Chair Force Engineer":

http://chairforceengineer.blogspot.com/2009/10/worlds-largest-stick-of-dynamite.html

Just when it seemed like the history books had been closed on the Challenger disaster, I came across a review of Truth, Lies & O-Rings, an interesting look at the faulty decision-making leading up to launch. (hat tip to Clark Lindsey's Hobbyspace.) The reviewer makes an interesting point about the dangers inherent in ground handling of solid rockets. Many of the inherent disadvantages of SRBs have been long-discussed, such as the inability to shut them down during abort situations. But handling and storing the motors carries all the potential dangers of riding on them. For that reason, SRB stacking operations are classified as "hazardous operations," and all non-essential personnel are banned from the Vehicle Assembly Building. The procedure is similar for stacking the stages of other solid-fuel launch vehicles. In spite of all the precautions and built-in safety mechanisms, the potential always exists for a catastrophic solid-fuel detonation, as occurred with Brazil's orbital launch vehicle.

While I tend to think that the risk is overstated (the industry has been dealing with large solid rockets since the 1940's,) it can never be entirely eliminated. For this reason, Jeff Bell predicted that the SRB would be deleted from the shuttle-derived launch vehicles under development by NASA. Many "space boosters" are dismissive of Jeff Bell, viewing him as a cynic whose arguments aren't worth the paper they're written on. I'll concede that his predictions often come with fatal flaws, but he does make a lot of solid arguments and presents plenty of pertinent facts. In the case of the aforementioned prediction, Jeff Bell's fatal flaw is assuming that NASA would choose a safe, clean-sheet launcher design over one that protects the shuttle's entrenched workforce and contractors.

The ground-handling of large solid rockets (and even the individual segments) was an issue that should have been re-examined when Ares I was designed to be "safe, simple and soon." While NASA personnel have done an admirable job in handling the SRB's up to this point, it's sobering to know that just one mistake could cost a lot of lives and pull the plug on the nation's manned space program. The Ares 5-segment SRB will be the world's largest stick of dynamite, and that risk should never be lost on anybody who works in the space business.

Re:Tragically, We Cannot Afford This Now

[MxTxL]

I am hard-pressed to think of any great advances in knowledge that were not already known from by the time the cruddy but long-surviving MIR burned up in the atmosphere.
I hate it when people like you pull the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately schtick. Listen, just because you can't think of anything doesn't mean there isn't useful science coming out of NASA EVERY DAY.

You should look at the NASA Spinoff page. http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

NASA is pushing the state of the art in materials, robotics, communications, structural engineering, environment and many others. Things that have real-world impact on our lives today. It's not just Tang and Velcro.

The ISS, despite all it's flaws and short comings, gives us lessons every day in how to survive and thrive in the harshest of all environments. It will give us the technology and know-how to do longer range and longer duration missions than were ever before possible.

Re:Tragically, We Cannot Afford This Now

[Geoffrey.landis]

Though I have always adored the thought and reality of space travel--this is just a luxury we cannot afford now. There is no pressing problem that would cause this need to travel to the Moon or Mars to occur.

No, actually, space exploration is essentailly done on the bubble-gum budget of the US. Deleting NASA or doubling NASA would have no noticible effect on the US budget-- the funding level is down in the noise compared to the main budget items.

Re:Tragically, We Cannot Afford This Now

[JWW]

This logic just pisses me off right now. NASA is asking for an extra $3 billion per year to build a new viable replacement to the space shuttle. When you contrast the other things the gov't is wastefully spending its money on its ridiculous.

You could fund NASA the extra $3 billion for

10 years instead of bailing out GM and Chrysler

or

Nearly 57 years instead of bailing out f-ing AIG

THAT is government waste. Spending for NASA has always provided benefits for science and impacted our daily lives. Its a worthy endeavor and something necessary to IMHO spur on the advancement of the human race.

Politicians make a great noise about "science and engineering" being important to this country. Lets see them back up those words. If NASA's new rockets die on the vine the politicians will have shown their true beliefs on this issue. If this nation fails to renew its capability for manned spaceflight, in my opinion, we will also distinctly show that to America, science and engineering don't matter anymore. Why not become a doctor or lawyer, oh wait, the doctors are going to get screwed by health care reform, so why not just become a lawyer if you want to be successful. This country no longer rewards those that build and design great things anymore, the money game and the ever growing soulless corporations get quite literally TRILLIONS of dollars in support from the government, and one of the biggest science and engineering problems we are trying to solve right now gets told "sorry theres not enough left for you". Its utter bullshit.

Sure our government doesn't really have enough money right now, but not because of NASAs budget issues, it because they've been handing it out like f-ing candy to assholes on Wall Street who f-cked the country over and went laughing all the way to the bank(err government). We need to get all that money back (or at least stop giving it away) and start spending it on the RIGHT things.

Scrub

[burisch_research]

Launch scrub for today due to weather.

Re:Awesome

[DynaSoar]

As a demonstration of US technical prowess, Ares I is pathetic; its got similar capabilities to Saturn I and took much longer to develop. It anything its a demonstration of US decline...

Since you are comparing launch vehicles rather than stage 1 boosters, I'll take it you mean Saturn C-1 which had the Saturn 1 first stage. It was the first of the Saturn family to fly. For comparison purposes we'll use that vs. the Ares 1-X CLV presently sitting on Pad 39B

Capabilities:
Saturn C-1: 19,800 lbs to LEO
Ares: 54,000 lbs to LEO

Development (proposal to first launch)
Saturn: 'Proposal for a National Integrated Missile and Space Vehicle Development Plan'; Werner von Braun 30 DEC 1957, to 27 OCT 1961 = ~46 months
Ares CLV: Initial design proposed September 2005 to (not yet flown but on pad 4 days ahead of schedule and awaiting a clear launch window) now = ~49 months

The 6.5% longer Ares development time is insignificant considering the August 2006 redesign from proven 4 segment SRB booster + shuttle main engine sustainer to untried 5 segment
SRB derivative + J-2S sustainer. The C1 didn't change significantly during development from the originally proposed cluster of Redstone airframes/tanks and engines.

As an aside, if the parent was posted with prior knowledge of these facts, the post itself the being purposefully false with the intent to instigate otherwise unnecessary replies, it would be a 'troll'. If the parent was posted in ignorance of the facts but simply intended to initiate arguments, it would be 'flamebait'. Intentionally or not, parent is quite the opposite of 'informative'. Sadly we do not have a '-1 misinformative' mod.

I'll not speculate on your intentions or on your possible state of ignorance/intellectual impairment, as time will produce a result more definitive than my mere opinion. I will note that like both the dummy payload carrying Saturn C1 and Ares 1-X, you appear to be capable of accomplishing little more than blowing a lot of smoke out of your ass.