ARES-I CREW LAUNCH VEHICLE

The Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) had been named Ares-I. Ares being the Greek god of Mars, and the “I” designation being given in recognition of the Saturn-I/IB, America’s first heavy-lift launch vehicles developed specifically for spaceflight. Ares-I will consist of two stages.

First stage

The Ares-I first stage will be constructed at Lockheed’s Michoud facility, where the Orion spacecraft will also be constructed. It is derived from a single five-segment SRB similar to those used on the Shuttle. Five segments is one more segment than a Shuttle SRB. This will burn the standard Shuttle-shaped charge solid propellant called polybutadiene acrylonitride. The first stage will burn for 2.5 minutes, raising the CLV to an altitude of 59,000 m and a velocity of Mach 6.1. When the propellant is consumed the SRB will shut down and will be jettisoned. It will make a controlled fall into the ocean under a single parachute and will be recovered, and returned to the

manufacturer for breakdown, cleaning, re-fueling, and re-use, in a similar manner to the present Shuttle SRBs. The Ares-I first stage will be manufactured by Alliant Techsystems, who produce the current Shuttle SRBs. The first two tests of the new pilot parachute were made in August 2007. A test subject was dropped from beneath a US Army Chinook helicopter at Yuma Proving Ground. The first in a series of drop tests for the new main recovery parachute for the longer SRB took place in October 2007. The parachutes used to recover the solid rocket boosters on both Ares launch vehicles and the Orion spacecraft will be refurbished in the existing Parachute Refurbishment Facility.

A new inter-stage adapter will mate the top of the first stage to the bottom of a new second stage. The adapter will carry separation rockets to ensure positive separation from the first stage when it is jettisoned. After completing that task, the interstage ring will also be jettisoned and will fall into the Atlantic Ocean. It will not be recovered. The interstage will be manufactured from composite materials, by Boeing, as part of their contract to produce the Ares-I second stage.