CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - There are only about 16 flights left before NASA's space shuttle
fleet retires in 2010, but an ambitious plan is in place to have a replacement
spacecraft ready by 2013.
This is two
years earlier than NASA's previously stated goal of getting the next generation
Orion Crew
Exploration Vehicle and the Ares I and Ares V rockets ready by 2015.
"There is a
two-thirds statistical likelihood of being successful in meeting that [2015]
date, but our plan is much more aggressive than that," said Jeff Hanley,
program manager for NASA's Constellation program. "We're trying to get the
[initial operating capabilities] by as early as 2013."
Hanley said
the year-old Constellation program is currently in the formulation phase and
trying to secure parts for the new spacecraft. A test
flight of an Ares I rocket could begin as early as 2009, with a piloted
test to follow as soon as 2013, Hanley said.
"At the end
of this year, we will have all the major elements under contract to build the
rocket and the spacecraft to take us back into low-Earth orbit and our first
steps back toward the Moon," said Scott Horowitz, NASA's associate
administrator for exploration systems.
The Ares
rockets will contain features from both the current shuttle and the old Saturn
rockets that carried the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. Ares I is a two-stage
rocket designed to loft NASA's new capsule-based vehicle, Orion, into orbit.
Its larger, cargo-only counterpart is Ares V, which will be the most powerful
rocket ever built and capable of carrying five to six times more payload than
the shuttle.
Orion will
replace the shuttle as NASA's vehicle to ferry astronauts to the International
Space Station, and it will also be the vehicle the agency plans to use to
return to the Moon in 2020.
NASA plans
to launch at least 13 shuttle flights dedicated to ISS construction through
2010, with the option of two additional logistics missions if feasible. A final
mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope is also slated to launch in
September 2008.
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