Ares Orion | Universe Today

Written by Jerry Coffey

The Ares Orion is the crew vehicle for the new Constellation program. The spacecraft is designed to carry up to 6 astronauts into orbit around the Earth or the Moon. The Orion will be launched by the Ares I platform and is intended to go to the Moon by 2020 and onto Mars as soon as possible. The Constellation program is planned to be launched from pad 39 just like the Space Shuttle program.

The Ares Orion is supposed to replace the Space Shuttle after its retirement in 2010 and should be launched the first time by 2015. Early missions are intended to service the International Space Station if there are no commercial service flights in commission by that time. The Constellation program was first announced by President Bush in a January 14, 2004 speech outlining the future of the U.S space program. According to the executive summary, the study was built around "a staged approach to human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. It recommends that Project Constellation be carried out in three distinct stages. These are:

Features the development of a new crew exploration vehicle (CEV), the completion of the International Space Station (ISS), and an early retirement of the shuttle orbiter. Orbiter retirement would be made as soon as the ISS U.S. Core is completed and the smallest number of additional flights necessary to satisfy our international partners’ ISS requirements. Money saved by early orbiter retirement would be used to accelerate the CEV development schedule to minimize or eliminate any hiatus in U.S. capability to reach and return from LEO.

Requires the development of additional assets, including an uprated CEV capable of extended missions of many months in interplanetary space. Habitation, laboratory, consumables, and propulsion modules, to enable human flight to the vicinities of the Moon and Mars, the Lagrange points, and certain near-Earth asteroids.

Development of human-rated planetary landers is completed in Stage 3, allowing human missions to the surface of the Moon and Mars beginning around 2020.

The largest challenge to the Ares Orion to this point is funding from Congress. Although to date the exploration systems have received full funding and a House endorsement, there is a possibility that rising shuttle return to flight costs would make funding of CEV development extremely difficult. There has been discussion of either obtaining a special supplemental from Congress to pay for the extra shuttle costs, or of involving private industry in CEV development and operations. The total funding of Project Constellation through 2025, inflation-adjusted and without any other increases to NASA's budget, is estimated at $210 billion. This cost may in fact end up lower as it includes developing new engines for the EDS instead of the newer idea of using J-2 derivatives.

It is about time that our space program turned its eyes towards lunar and Martian exploration. Here is a link that is more in depth about the Ares Orion. Here on Universe Today we have a great article about the recent stories about flaws in the Ares Orion. Astronomy Cast offers a good episode about the Constellation program.

Filed under: Astronomy

Tags: Ares Orion, Constellation program