WASHINGTON — NASA's postponement
of the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission until at least February is all
but certain to delay the first test flight of the U.S. space agency's new
astronaut-launching rocket.
NASA
has been targeting a late-spring launch out of Florida's Kennedy Space Center
(KSC) of Ares 1-X, an early prototype of the Ares 1
crew launch vehicle the agency intends to field in 2015. The Ares 1, derived
from the space shuttle solid-rocket motors, will be used to loft NASA's planned
Crew Exploration Vehicle into space.
But
before NASA can move ahead with the Ares 1-X flight, the agency first needs to
make some permanent modifications to a space shuttle launch pad that must
remain unchanged until after the Hubble
repair mission.
Carol
Scott, NASA's Ares
1-X deputy mission manager at KSC, said the basic plan for getting Launch
Complex Pad 39B ready for Ares 1-X remains unchanged, but acknowledged in an
Oct. 3 interview that a schedule slip appears certain.
"We
are all going through schedule assessments especially now with the Hubble
delay," Scott said. "I do expect to have a new schedule coming out of
that and then I believe schedules will be adjusted at that point."
Although
senior NASA officials told reporters prior to the Hubble setback that the Ares
1-X flight likely would not launch before summer, the Ares 1 program and its
contractors have continued to target an April 15 launch date.
Scott
said a mid-April launch is no longer possible.
"Not
with the Hubble delays we have. We would not be able to meet an April 15
date," she said.
Space
Shuttle Atlantis was positioned on Launch Complex Pad 39A with a full load of
spare parts awaiting its scheduled Oct. 14 launch toward Hubble when the
18-year-old space telescope experienced an onboard computer failure Sept. 27.
The glitch was serious enough that NASA wasted little time announcing that the
mission would have to be put off for several months.
NASA
made the call while a second space shuttle orbiter, Endeavour, was perched atop
neighboring Pad 39B being readied for a so-called launch-on-need rescue mission
agency officials hope will not be necessary. NASA rules require that for
shuttle missions to destinations other than the international space station, a
second orbiter must be ready to launch on a rescue mission should something go
wrong with the first.
Had
the Hubble repair mission lifted off in mid-October as planned, ground crews
would have gotten to work almost immediately washing down Atlantis' Mobile
Launch Platform and preparing the giant tracked vehicle for a number of
modifications needed to support the Ares 1-X flight. Meanwhile, once it was
clear that Endeavour would not be needed to rescue a stranded Hubble-repair
crew, that orbiter would be moved to Pad 39A for a mid-November launch to the
space station. The Mobile Launch Platform used for Atlantis' liftoff then would
be rolled out to Pad 39B where it would undergo a planned 10 weeks worth of
modifications.
Ground
crews also would begin installation of a command, communications and control
system and swap out some interfaces between the pad and launch platform, all
while continuing to erect a new lightning tower tall enough to protect the
roughly 95-meter-tall rocket during the thunderstorms prevalent along the
Florida coast during warmer months.
Scott
said work on the lightning tower would not be affected by the Hubble delay. She
also said a number of key changes planned for the pad were not due to get under
way until January or February.
"We're
still in design phase so a lot of the [equipment] like the vehicle
stabilization system ... aren't slated to come here until April and that will
not be affected by Hubble," she said.
Scott
said it was too early to determine how much Ares 1-X would be delayed as a result
of Hubble's problems. The Ares program, she said, cannot replan the Ares 1-X
work until the space shuttle program nails down a new schedule for the Hubble
repair mission.
However,
Scott said she is hopeful that Hubble's delay will not result in a month-for-month
slip for Ares 1-X.
"Because
that's what KSC does best — they will go and reprioritize and reprogram to see
how they can still meet the earliest date. That's what we do here all the
time," she said.
Meanwhile,
Ares 1-X flight hardware is starting to ship from various points around the United States. NASA's Cleveland-based Glenn Research Center, for example, has finished
construction of an Ares 1-X dummy upper stage and plans to ship that hardware
out before the end of October.
Glenn
spokeswoman Katherine Martin said a media event is planned for Oct. 22 at the Ohio River port where the dummy rocket stage will begin its journey down to KSC aboard the
Delta Mariner, the same vessel that carries Delta 4 rocket stages too big to
travel over land.
Scott
said having the bulk of the rocket and new ground support hardware on hand
before pad modifications begin in earnest actually could permit KSC to work
more efficiently than otherwise might have been possible. This could keep a
five-month delay in handover of Pad 39B from translating into a five-month
delay in the launch of Ares 1-X.
"Hardware
deliveries will be at more opportune times within the schedule so we can do
more parallel work now than we could have," she said. "They probably
will be doing more work in parallel so they may be able to shorten the delay so
it may not be the same five-month delay."
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