Aug. 27, 2009 -- After 3.5 years and $350 million, hours of computer analysis and dozens of wind tunnel tests, NASA has just one question left of its new Ares launch vehicle: Will it fly?
Truth is, nobody knows.
Range safety officers at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which will oversee the flight of the experimental Ares moon rocket from nearby Kennedy Space Center, say about 40 percent of all new rockets fail on their debut flights.
"If we knew for a fact it'll fly, we wouldn't do the flight," Bob Ess, mission manager for the Ares 1-X program, told Discovery News.
Ares I is designed to become NASA's main space transportation system -- one that will carry crewed missions back to the moon, on to Mars and out into the solar system. If the rocket looks somewhat familiar that's because it is.
NASA took one of the shuttle's solid-fuel rocket boosters, added a fifth segment and made other modifications to create the core launch vehicle for its follow-on shuttle program, called Constellation.
The first firing of the elongated shuttle booster was scheduled for today, but was aborted during the final countdown when the auxiliary power unit for the nozzle control system failed. A key test flight is on tap for October from Florida.
The rocket already is assembled in a hangar borrowed from the shuttle program. The vehicle is actually a four-piece solid rocket motor, with a dummy spacer inserted to simulate the mass and length of the fifth segment. It is topped with a faux second-stage engine and simulated Orion capsule.
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"The point of the flight is to verify that we can steer a rocket this tall, this shape, this weight," said deputy mission manager Jon Cowart.
Though NASA has been flying shuttle booster rockets for 30 years, they have flown in pairs and attached to the ship's giant fuel tank. Configured as an Ares 1 booster, the rocket will span 327 feet tall, nearly the length of the 1960s-era Saturn moon rocket.
"This is now the tallest rocket in the world," said Ess, adding that flying it is "like balancing a broom on your finger."
The test vehicle is outfitted with more than 700 sensors to relay data during the flight. The booster will fire for 2.5 minutes, just like the shuttle boosters do, then separate from the vehicle so they can parachute down into the Atlantic Ocean for recovery.
The flight is designed to test the new, larger parachutes designed for the Ares 1 rocket, as well.
NASA is proceeding with the test flight despite uncertainty if the United States will continue the Ares 1 program. A study team appointed by the Obama administration to review options for the U.S. human space program is due to make its final report on Monday.
During public meetings, the panel said funding cuts have undermined NASA's lunar ambitious to the point where it no longer makes sense to develop the Ares 1. Alternatives include government purchase of launch services from commercial providers, though none have yet demonstrated capability to fly people. Ares program critics also argued for alternative government-developed rockets.
Ess and Cowart say that no matter what happens, flying the experimental rocket is critical.
"It's been a long time since NASA built a new vehicle," Ess said. "The whole purpose of this test is to get information so we ... understand and can correlate our computer models. From that, we learn as an agency how to use that data for the next launch vehicle."
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