A Mars Odyssey

If you’re going to build a whole new space program from the ground up, you’ll be needing more than rockets and spaceships. You’ll need the support infrastructure in place and ready to go from the moment the designs are green-lighted. To that end, NASA has contracted out for several new updates and structures to support the Constellation Program well into the future.

While Launch Pad 39B of Apollo and Space Shuttle fame at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is being handed over to Constellation in April 2007 for use with Ares I, the handover isn’t complete until at least 2008 when STS-125 uses the pad to lift-off on the long-awaited Hubble servicing mission. In the meanwhile, work will begin in earnest to build three 600-ft (183m) lightning towers that will be pressed into service just as soon as the permanent Fixed Service Structures that support shuttle missions are taken down next year. The first stage of launch pad modifications should be ready just in time for the first scheduled launch test of Ares I in 2009.

If Ares I is to be ready in time, it will need to be assembled somewhere out of the elements. Enter the newly remodeled and mind-bendingly large Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), currently beginning construction, also at KSC. Like the Space Shuttle before it, the Ares launch vehicles are to be “stacked” here prior to launch and then transported via one of three existing Crawlers and modified Mobile Launch Pad to the eventual launch site. Also in the works is a yet un-drafted super-crawler that may need to be used to transport the hefty Ares V.

Not only will NASA be retrofitting and reusing just about every piece of Apollo equipment it can cannibalize, but it will be stretching some of these technologies to their limits. Take the crawler for instance. If it gets too much bigger than is already in the works, it will be in danger of sinking into the ground. Mankind has yet to make the tow-truck that can pull a fully loaded and fuelled Ares V out of the proverbial ditch.

In a “one day at a time” spirit, the agency has been focusing on the crew launch aspects of the project while it continues to work out some of the concerns arising from the massive scale of the Ares V payload launch system. More information will no doubt be forthcoming when the submitted designs pass their first review, as Ares I did recently.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Technical Concerns, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.