The towering 327-foot-tall Ares I-X rocket leaves the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket, riding atop a crawler-transporter, headed down the 4.2-mile track to Launch Pad 39B. The move to the launch pad, known as "rollout," began at 1:39 a.m. EDT and ended with “hard down” at the launch pad at 9:17 a.m. EDT.
Photo Credit: NASA
NASA’s Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) publicly released a new online module on the lessons learned from Ares I-X.
On October 28, 2009, the Ares I-X Flight Test Vehicle (FTV) successfully launched from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Designed as the first test flight for NASA’s Ares I crew launch vehicle, the Ares I-X FTV launch provided a wealth of data and lessons learned for the development for future NASA missions.
The Ares I-X project overcame many unique engineering, management, and process-level challenges, and ultimately met all of its primary objectives. The online module contains a narrative report, video interviews, knowledge-based risks, and related documents and videos about lessons learned from Ares I-X.
Access the Ares I-X Lessons Learned Module.
Read “Building the Team: The Ares 1-X Upper Stage Simulator,” an APPEL case study about Glenn Research Center’s preparations to build space flight hardware for the Ares Program.
