Oct. 20: As the sun rises over Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the 327-foot-tall Ares I-X rocket, secured to a mobile launcher platform, prepares to climb the five percent grade of the crawler way to the top of the pad.
The $445 million rocket's rollout comes on the eve of a final report from an independent committee appointed by the White House to review NASA's plans for future human spaceflight.
Not since the April 1981 test flight of NASA's space shuttle Columbia has NASA test launched a new rocket designed to carry astronauts into space.
Like Columbia and its external tank, the towering Ares I-X rocket is painted in all white and gleamed in the glare of blazing xenon spotlights as it emerged from the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building. But unlike that first shuttle flight, Ares I-X will be unmanned. More photos here...
No comments:
Post a Comment