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:''This article is about the Ares V launch vehicle. For other uses, see Ares (disambiguation).''

The 'Ares V' (formerly known as the Cargo Launch Vehicle or CaLV) is the cargo launch component of Project Constellation. Ares V will launch the Earth Departure Stage and Lunar Surface Access Module when NASA returns to the Moon, which is currently planned for 2019.^[1] The Ares V will complement the Ares I, which is being designed as a crew launch vehicle. The launch vehicle will be able to carry about 130 metric tons (287,000 lb) to Low Earth orbit (LEO) and 65 metric tons (143,300 lb) to the Moon.^[2]

Contents

Design

Ares V's role in Project Constellation

Further roles

Early concepts

See also

External links

References

Design

The Ares V is being designed as a heavy-launch vehicle capable of sending large-scale hardware and materials to the Moon and supplying needed staples to sustain a human presence beyond Earth orbit.² Ares V is a two-stage rocket: the first stage utilizes both solid and liquid propulsion with the second stage using a single J-2X rocket engine.
The first stage has two separate types of engines. Like the Space Shuttle, the Ares V will use both liquid-fueled and solid-fueled engines simultaneously. The solid rockets will use two Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster-derived rockets, which will have five segments instead of the four currently used on the Space Shuttle.² Additionally, the Ares V will use five RS-68 liquid-fueled engines attached to a "larger version" of the Space Shuttle External Tank.² Originally, NASA intended to use five Space Shuttle Main Engines instead of the RS-68s. NASA made the change to the RS-68s due to the RS-68s simplicity in design and construction, its higher thrust, and its reduced cost.
The second stage, based on the S-IVB upper stage used on the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets, is known as the Earth Departure Stage (EDS). The EDS would feature a single J-2X rocket engine (also used as the second-stage engine for the Ares I) that will maneuver the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) or any large-sized payload into a circular orbit.² On lunar missions, the EDS will then fire its engine for a second time to place the combined Orion spacecraft and LSAM onto a trajectory to the Moon.
The Ares V capacity (approximately 130 metric tons) would be in the same class as the American Saturn V and Soviet/Russian Energia rocket and would be capable of supporting manned expansion to the Moon as well as to Mars.² It can, with the addition of a LSAM-based "kick motor" (or even a Centaur upper stage), even launch planetary probes at the same weight class as that of both the Galileo and Cassini-Huygens directly to the outer Solar System.

Ares V's role in Project Constellation

Ares V will be the cargo launch component of Project Constellation. Unlike the Saturn V and Space Shuttle, where the crew and cargo were launched simultaneously on the same rocket, the plans for Project Constellation outline having two separate launch vehicles, the Ares I and the Ares V, for crew and cargo, respectively. Having two separate launch vehicles will allow for more specialized designs for the different purposes the rockets will fulfill.
The Ares V rocket is NASA's new heavy-lift launch vehicle. It is being designed to launch the Earth Departure Stage and Lunar Surface Access Module as well as being the platform to launch new modules for the International Space Station, NASA's proposed lunar outpost and any human missions to Mars in the future.²

Further roles

Even if Ares V is long way to be realized, there are already plans at NASA to make other use of it^[3], something similar as the failed Apollo Applications Program.

★ The first proposal is to build a new 8+ meters wide optical telescope to be placed in the L2 point. It would be a significant increase in dimension and performance over the Hubble Space Telescope and the Ares V vehicle will be able to carry this to its destination in a single shot.

Early concepts

While the Ares V is a quite new proposal from NASA, a similar vehicle has been proposed for years to replace the Saturn V heavy lancher.

★ In the book ''The Case for Mars'', Robert Zubrin named a possible future heavy launch vehicle named ''Ares''.^[4] In the book the rocket would have consisted in the Space Shuttle's External Tank powered by three SSME and a second stage powered by RL-10 engine.

See also

★ Ares I

★ Ares IV

★ Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicle

★ Direct Launch Vehicle

External links

★ A Visual History of Project Constellation

References

1. NASA sets Orion 13 for Moon Return Daniel Handlin
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3.
4. Zubrin, Robert & Wagner, Richard. 1997. ''The Case for Mars''. Page 61ss