The Ares was a proposed

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

(ICBM) derived from the

Titan II The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company from the earlier Titan I missile. Titan II was originally designed and used as an ICBM, but was later adapted as a medium-lift space ...

missile. It was a single-stage rocket with a high-performance engine to increase the rocket's

specific impulse Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine, such as a rocket engine, rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel, generates thrust. In general, this is a ratio of the ''Impulse (physics), ...

. Both

Aerojet Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp, ...

and

Rocketdyne Rocketdyne is an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, California, Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles, in southern California. Rocketdyne ...

carried out engine design studies for the project, but Ares was ultimately cancelled in favour of solid-fuel ICBMs, which were safer to store and could be launched with much less notice. The Ares missile series was canceled due to the inconvenience of using liquid fuel. Some reasons included extensive protection from corrosion within the silos, as well as the liquid fuel propellant, ideally used in the proposed Ares missiles, being more expensive to maintain. Thus making the transition to use the Minuteman II missiles, that ran on solid fuel, easier because solid fuel was more reliable for sand was less expensive than previous projects. Hence the cancellation of the Ares missile series.

Specification

Sources: * Payload: 4,000 kg (8,800 lb) * Payload Orbit: 160 km * Height: 30.00 m (98.00 ft) * Diameter: 3.00 m (9.80 ft) * Width: 3.00 m (9.80 ft) * Mass: 150,000 kg (330,000 lb)

References

Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States Intercontinental ballistic missiles of the United States Titan (rocket family) Single-stage-to-orbit {{US-mil-stub