WASHINGTON -
NASA officials are weighing whether they need two space shuttle launch pads to
support the upcoming Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission or if they can
get by with one launch pad, a shift that would help keep the planned July test
flight of the Ares 1-X launch vehicle on schedule.
Before NASA
can fly the
Ares 1-X, a prototype of the Ares 1 crew launch vehicle slated to debut in
2015, the agency needs to make permanent modifications to one of the two space
shuttle launch pads at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. However, the Hubble
servicing mission as currently planned requires both pads to be available: one
from which to launch the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the repair mission and one
to launch space shuttle Endeavour on a rescue mission, should that become
necessary.
Current
plans call for having Atlantis and Endeavour occupy Pads 39-A and 39-B,
respectively, during preparations for the planned May 12 launch of the STS-125
Hubble servicing mission. But NASA officials now are considering launching
Atlantis and then rolling Endeavour out to Pad 39-A, said Jeff Hanley,
Constellation program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. This
would make Pad 39-B available to undergo the three to four months of
modifications necessary to support the Ares 1-X flight, he told reporters in a Wednesday
press briefing.
Constellation
refers to the hardware NASA needs to replace
the space shuttle, which is slated to retire in 2010, and return
astronauts to the Moon.
To hold to
the July 11 date for the Ares 1-X test flight, Hanley said he will need a
decision by February as to whether the Hubble servicing mission will use just
one launch pad.
Bill
Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations, and John
Shannon, space shuttle program manager, will decide whether Endeavour can be
placed in ready status quickly after Atlantis lifts off, an option NASA
officials previously said was not likely. The prospect of Ares 1-X being
delayed again by the Hubble servicing mission prompted a second look at that
option.
"I think I
can confidently say if pad B is required for STS-125 in May '09 that we will
not launch Ares 1-X in July." Hanley said. "We have some very close
coordination going on with the shuttle team. We are trying to mitigate as much
as we can the overlap that might occur should the shuttle team not be able to
use single pad operations."
Ares 1-X
originally was scheduled to launch in April, but the flight was pushed to July
after problems with Hubble's onboard computer system delayed the servicing
mission to the 18-year-old observatory to February. NASA later delayed
the Hubble mission to May after a discovering glitch in one of Hubble's
spare parts.
While the
Constellation team awaits a decision on the Ares 1-X test flight, it is working
on other equipment modifications needed to support the Ares program. The team
installed electronics on the shuttle's mobile launcher platform, for example,
even though that system has not been officially handed over to them, Hanley
said.
"The team
has been digging in and finding operations to do," he said. "We're looking for
opportunities every chance we can get."
NASA has
embarked on an ambitious three-day roll out and launch schedule for Ares 1-X,
which Hanley said he believes the team can meet, or at least come close to
meeting.
Meanwhile,
NASA is working toward other Constellation milestones, including an Ares 1
preliminary design review in the spring or early summer and release of the
first phase of contracts for the heavy-lift Ares 5 launcher necessary to
support the return of astronauts to the Moon. The final request for proposals
will be issued the week of Dec. 21, said Doug Cooke, deputy associate
administrator of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA
headquarters in Washington.
NASA also
is seeking comment from industry on a draft request for proposals for the first
phase of contracts for the Altair lander, which will be launched by Ares 5 and
carry four astronauts to the lunar surface. That final request for proposals is
expected in January.
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