WASHINGTON
— While NASA’s planned Ares 5 rocket could be used to launch large and ambitious space science missions a decade or so from now, such missions could prove too expensive to ever come to fruition, a National Research Council (NRC) committee said in a report released Nov. 24. NRC’s Committee on Science Opportunities Enabled by NASA’s Constellation System assessed 17 proposed future science missions and how they would benefit from NASA’s Constellation launch infrastructure, which includes the Ares 1 crew launch vehicle, Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares 5 heavy-lift cargo launcher. The committee concluded that for science missions, Ares 1 does not offer capabilities much different from those already offered by the family of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV) operated by Denver-based United Launch Alliance.
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