Ares V - Cargo Launch Vehicle

Ares V will serve as NASA's primary vessel for safe, reliable delivery of large-scale hardware to space. It will deliver hardware from the lunar landing craft and materials for establishing a moon base, to food, fresh water and other staples needed to extend a human presence beyond Earth orbit.

The Constellation Program's "heavy lifter" is a two-stage, vertically-stacked launch vehicle, which can carry nearly 414,000 pounds (188 metric tons) to low-Earth orbit. When working together with the Ares I crew launch vehicle to launch payloads into Earth orbit, Ares V can send nearly 157,000 punds (71 metric tons) to the moon.

The Ares V's first stage, responsible for the initial insertion into Earth orbit, relies on two five-and- a-half segment reusable sollid rocket boosters derived from the space shuttle solid rocket boosters. These twin reusable solid rocket boosters of the cargo lifter's first stage flank a single, liquid-fueled central booster element, known as the core stage. Derived from the Saturn V, the core stage tank delivers liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants to a cluster of six RS-68B rocket engines.

Atop the central booster element is an interstage cylinder, which includes booster seperation motors. This serves to connect the core stage to the Ares V Earth departure stage (EDS). This stage of the Ares V rocket is propelled by a J-2X main engine, which is also powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen. The J-2X is an evolved version of two historic predecessors: the powerful J-2 upper-stage engine, that propelled the Apollo-era Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets to the moon, and the J-2S engine, a simplified version of the J-2 developed and tested in the early 1970s.

The Ares V effort and associated element hardware and propulsion teams are led by the Ares Projects Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, which reports to the Constellation Program Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Constellation is a key program of NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington. ATK Launch Systems of Brigham City, Utah, is the prime contractor for the reusable solid rocket boosters. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif., is the prime contractor for both the J-2X upper stage engine and the RS-68 core stage engines.

The Ares V represents an unmatched national asset for lifting heavy exploration, scientific, and commercial payloads to Earth orbit or trans-lunar injection, a trajectory designed to intersect with the moon. Such lifting capabilities will enable NASA to, in time, undertake crewed missions to destinations beyond the moon.