The Ares V (formerly known as the Cargo Launch Vehicle or CaLV) was the planned cargo launch component of the cancelled

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

Constellation program The Constellation program (abbreviated CxP) was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a " ...

, which was to have replaced the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

after its retirement in 2011. Ares V was also planned to carry supplies for a human presence on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

. Ares V and the smaller

Ares I Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed by NASA as part of the Constellation program. The name "Ares" refers to the Greek deity Ares, who is identified with the Roman god Mars. Ares I was originally known as the "Crew Launc ...

were named after Ares, the Greek god of war. The Ares V was to launch the Earth Departure Stage and

Altair Altair is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila and the twelfth-brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Aquilae, which is Latinised from α Aquilae and abbreviated Alpha Aql ...

lunar lander for NASA's return to the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

, which was planned for 2019. It would also have served as the principal launcher for missions beyond the Earth-Moon system, including the program's ultimate goal, a crewed mission to Mars. The uncrewed Ares V would complement the smaller, and

human-rated Human-rating certification, also known as man-rating or crew-rating, is the certification of a spacecraft or launch vehicle as capable of safely transporting humans. There is no one particular standard for human-rating a spacecraft or launch veh ...

rocket for the launching of the 4–6 person Orion spacecraft. Both rockets, deemed safer than the then-current Space Shuttle, would have employed technologies developed for the Apollo program, the Shuttle program, and the

Delta IV Delta IV is a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family introduced in the early 2000s. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, t ...

EELV program. However, the Constellation program, including Ares V and Ares I, was canceled in October 2010 by the

NASA Authorization Act of 2010 The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 is a U.S. law authorizing NASA appropriations for fiscal years 2011, 2012, 2013 with the same top-line budget values as requested by US President Barack Obama. It resulted from the Augustine Commission's review o ...

. In September 2011, NASA detailed the

Space Launch System The Space Launch System (SLS) is an American super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle developed by NASA. As of 2022, SLS has the highest payload capacity of any rocket in operational service, as well as the greatest liftoff thrust of any r ...

as its new vehicle for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit, while commercial space companies would provide low earth orbit access for both cargo and astronauts.

Development

Early concepts

In the 1996 book ''

The Case for Mars ''The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must'' is a nonfiction science book by Robert Zubrin, first published in 1996, and revised and updated in 2011. The book details Zubrin's Mars Direct plan to make the first human ...

'', author

Robert Zubrin Robert Zubrin (; born April 9, 1952) is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human exploration of Mars. He and his colleague at Martin Marietta, David Baker, were the driving force behind Mars Direct, a proposal in a 1990 res ...

discussed a possible future heavy launch vehicle named ''Ares''. In the book, the rocket would have consisted of the

Space Shuttle external tank The Space Shuttle external tank (ET) was the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplied the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the ...

powered by four Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) and a second stage powered by an RL-10 engine. One notable difference in the Zubrin ''et al.'' design is that the SSMEs were on a small side-mounted flyback craft. This design was meant to allow the Ares to fly using existing Space Shuttle infrastructure.

Constellation

Ares V was to be the cargo launch component of the

. Unlike the

Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...

and

, where the crew and cargo were launched together on the same rocket, Project Constellation planned to use two separate launch vehicles, the Ares I and the Ares V, for crew and cargo respectively. This configuration would have allowed the two launch vehicles to be optimized for their respective missions. Constellation therefore combined the

Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar lander travel to ...

used by Apollo with the Earth Orbit Rendezvous mode proposed by Dr.

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

(alongside the "Direct Ascent" proposal) during the early planning stages of Apollo. Aiaa1

Development of the rocket and its Earth departure stage was led by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA's

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labo ...

was responsible for the Ares V integrated health management system supports in developing its payload shroud.

Glenn Research Center NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is a NASA center within the cities of Brook Park and Cleveland between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks, with a subsidiary facilit ...

led the development of the lunar lander ascent stage as well as Ares V power system, thrust vector control system and payload shroud. Langley Research Center had a lead role in researching Ares V aerodynamics. In 2007, NASA announced that Alliant Techsystems would be the contractor for the SRBs of both Ares I and Ares V.

Further roles

Although the Ares V was a medium- to long-term project, NASA planned to deploy its lift capability in a range of projects, along the lines of the former

Apollo Applications Program The Apollo Applications Program (AAP) was created as early as 1966 by NASA headquarters to develop science-based human spaceflight missions using hardware developed for the Apollo program. AAP was the ultimate development of a number of official ...

. One proposal was to build an 8- to 16-meter Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope to be placed in the Sun/Earth L2 point. It would be a significant increase in dimension and performance over the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

and the Ares V vehicle was expected to carry this to its destination in a single launch. Future Ares V missions could also have served as a cost-effective, mass transport of construction materials for future

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

and missions, delivering raw materials, for example, to a Moon dock.

In May 2010, NASA planned flight demonstrations of Ares V hardware along with Ares I hardware after the scheduled upcoming Ares I-X Prime test of the Ares I five-segment SRB first stage. Several flights were listed as "Heavy Lift" test flights for testing the first stage of the Ares V simultaneously with the Ares I upper stage attached on top of the Ares V first stage. This would save both time and money in avoiding the gap between testing Ares I and Ares V hardware with limited funding.

Cancellation

The Augustine Commission concluded that "under the FY 2010 funding profile, the Committee estimates that Ares V will not be available until the late 2020s".Augustine Committee 2009, p. 60. Even if NASA had been given a $3 billion increase in funding and the ISS had been retired in 2015, the committee still believed that the Ares V would not be ready until the mid-2020s.Augustine Committee 2009, p. 86. On February 1, 2010, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

announced a proposal to cancel the Constellation program effective with the U.S. 2011 fiscal year budget, but later announced changes to the proposal in a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010. In October 2010, the

was signed into law, which canceled Constellation. However, previous legislation kept Constellation contracts in force until a new funding bill was passed for 2011. Due to previous legislative obligations, $500 million was to be paid to contractors after the program's cancellation until March 2011.

Successor

The successor to the Ares rocket family is the

, a more versatile vehicle designed to launch both crew and cargo, similar to the Ares IV concept. It has a payload range of 95-130 tons to LEO across its different variants. The SLS is similar to earlier Ares V designs in that it uses a stretched 8.4–meter external tank and is powered by 4

RS-25 The Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25, also known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine that was used on NASA's Space Shuttle and is currently used on the Space Launch System (SLS). Designed and manufactu ...

s. Initial designs for the SLS used the same Earth Departure Stage but development was put on hold with the 4-RL-10

Exploration Upper Stage The Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) is being developed as a large second stage for Block 1B and Block 2 of the Space Launch System (SLS), succeeding Block 1's Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage. It will be powered by four RL10C-3 engines burning ...

taking its place. Both vehicles make use of the same 5–segment SRBs, although the SLS will not recover them. Under the Artemis program, the vehicle will transport crew to the Moon in the

Orion spacecraft Orion (officially Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the Euro ...

as well as logistics equipment and cargo for surface missions. They will rendezvous with a separate lunar lander either docked to the

Lunar Gateway The Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is the first planned extraterrestrial space station in lunar orbit intended to serve as a solar-powered communication hub, science laboratory, and short-term habitation module for government-agency astr ...

, a lunar orbital station, or free flying in lunar orbit. The SLS Block 1B version is capable of Earth orbital rendezvous lunar mission profiles such as that of the Ares V, lunar orbital rendezvous such as what NASA is currently pursuing, and integrated lunar missions such as the Apollo missions using the Saturn V, which has been proposed under a new House of Representatives bill.

Design

The Ares V was intended as a heavy launch vehicle to send large hardware and materials to the Moon, or to send supplies beyond Earth orbit to sustain human presence there. The Ares V was designed to be a three-stage rocket: the first and second stages, which burn together, were to use both solid and liquid propulsion with the upper stage providing the necessary propulsion to send the hardware and staples beyond

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

and onto a trajectory to the Moon. Ares V underwent a preliminary design review after the results of the 2009 Augustine Commission."Bolden Directs MSFC Special Team to evaluate HLV alternatives"
Nasaspaceflight.com (October 21, 2009). Retrieved June 7, 2012. Like the Space Shuttle, the Ares vehicle was to use a pair of solid-fuel first-stage rocket boosters that burn simultaneously with the liquid-fueled core stage. The solid rocket booster on Ares V was first envisioned as an improved version of the

Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was the first solid-propellant rocket to be used for primary propulsion on a vehicle used for human spaceflight. A pair of these provided 85% of the Space Shuttle's thrust at liftoff and for the first ...

, but with five or five and a half segments instead of the four segments used with the Space Shuttle."NASA Needs A Bigger Ares V"
Aviation Week & Space Technology, February 27, 2008. The liquid-fueled core stage was to be derived from the

and was to use either five or six

RS-68 The Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-68 (Rocket System 68) is a liquid-fuel rocket engine that uses liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) as propellants in a gas-generator power cycle. It is the largest hydrogen-fueled rocket engine ever flown. I ...

B engines attached to the bottom of a new 10 m diameter tank, or five SSMEs attached to the bottom of a stretched version of the Space Shuttle's 8.4 m external tank. It was to be fueled by liquid oxygen (

LOX Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an appli ...

) and liquid hydrogen ( LH2). Rocket size comparison

The upper stage, derived from the

S-IVB The S-IVB (pronounced "S-four-B") was the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB launch vehicles. Built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it had one J-2 rocket engine. For lunar missions it was fired twice: first for Earth ...

upper stage used on the Saturn IB and

rockets, was named the Earth Departure Stage (EDS). The EDS would be powered by an Apollo-derived J-2X rocket engine, which was also to be used on the liquid-fueled upper stage of the

booster. The EDS was to be used to steer the

lunar lander into its initial low Earth "parking" orbit for later retrieval by the Orion spacecraft, and then would propel both the Altair and Orion to the Moon. The EDS could also have been used to take large payloads into low Earth orbit, along with placing large uncrewed spacecraft onto trajectories beyond the Earth-Moon system. The Ares V was designed to have a payload capacity of over 414,000 lb (188

metric ton The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s) to

Low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

(LEO), and 157,000 lb (71 metric tons) to the Moon.Overview: Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle
NASA. Retrieved September 30, 2008. Upon completion the Ares V would be the most powerful rocket ever built, lifting more into orbit than even the American Saturn V, the failed

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

N-1 for the canceled

Soviet Moonshot The Soviet crewed lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union to land humans on the Moon, in competition with the United States Apollo program. The Soviet government publicly denied participating in such a competitio ...

, and the successful Soviet/Russian Energia booster developed for the Buran Shuttle. Besides its lunar role, it could also support a crewed Orion expedition to a Near-Earth asteroid, and could boost an 8 to 16-meter successor of the

to the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

-Earth point.

Derivatives

Ares IV

The Ares IV concept combines an Ares I upper stage on top of an Ares V. Specifically, the vehicle would consist of the liquid-fueled core stage from the Ares V design, two five-segment solid rocket boosters, and the liquid-fueled upper stage from the Ares I, as described by NASA in January 2007. The Ares IV would be a combined tall and could be used to reach the Moon. Total payload capacity would be to for direct trans-lunar injection. NASA had considered using Ares IV to evaluate high-speed "skip" reentry profiles of the Orion capsule in 2007. NASA had planned flight demonstrations of Ares I and Ares V hardware in "Heavy Lift" configurations beginning in 2013. The "Heavy Lift" test flights were to test the first stage of the Ares V simultaneously with the Ares I upper stage attached on top to save both time and money. The later Heavy Lift test vehicle configurations are similar to the Ares IV vehicle.

Ares V Lite

Ares V Lite was an alternative launch vehicle for NASA's Constellation program suggested by the Augustine Commission. Ares V Lite was a scaled down Ares V. It would have used five

engines and two five-segment SRBs and have had a low Earth orbit payload of approximately 140 metric tons (309,000 lb). If chosen, Ares V Lite would have replaced the Ares V and

launchers. One Ares V Lite version would have been a cargo lifter like Ares V and the second version would have carried astronauts in the Orion spacecraft.Augustine Committee 2009, pp. 38, 64–67, 80.

In fiction

In the 2013 film ''

Star Trek Into Darkness ''Star Trek Into Darkness'' is a 2013 American science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof. It is the 12th installment in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and the sequel to t ...

'', a desktop model of the Ares V rocket was set decoration in the office of Admiral Alexander Marcus as part of his spaceflight collection.

References

* Augustine Committee
"Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, Final Report"
NASA, October 2009.

External links

NASA Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle

Can we power future Mars missions?
{{Reusable launch systems Partially reusable space launch vehicles Ares (rocket family) Shuttle-derived space launch vehicles Cancelled space launch vehicles