[RSS]

NASA's Constellation program, established in 2005, continues its work toward the building the future of manned space exploration in the U.S. The first test flight of the Ares I-X rocket - a functional mockup of the actual Ares I rocket, similar in shape and mass - is scheduled for July, 2009. The stimulus bill just passed by the U.S. Congress will be sending an additional $1 billion to NASA, $400 million of which is for its manned space program. Engineers are now busy refitting old facilities, running tests, building the infrastructure and working towards a planned first launch of a crew to the International Space Station in 2014. Collected here are photographs of various parts of the Constellation program coming together, including parts of the Orion crew vehicle, the Ares I and Ares IV rockets, and supporting systems. (31 photos total)http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/ares_02_16/a01_285670.jpg
This schlieren photo from October 28th, 2008 depicts a wind tunnel test demonstrating air flow over the 0.34 percent scale model of the Ares V heavy cargo launch vehicle at Mach 4.5. Schlieren imaging is a diagnostic method used to visualize air flows with varying densities, widely used in aeronautical engineering to photograph the flow of air around objects. (NASA/MSFC)

Les photos ...