Artist's rendering of the ARES launch system. (Rendering by Joe Adams)

Aerospace Assists the Air Force on
Launch System Study

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (3/28/05) -- The Air Force is beginning a demonstration program for the Affordable Responsive Spacelift (ARES) launch system based, in part, on analyses and studies performed by The Aerospace Corporation.

The ARES concept was developed to create a transformational spacelift capability for a wide range of payload classes and features a reusable fly-back booster with expendable upper stages. Its principal characteristics are that it is affordable, responsive, simple to operate, and reliable.

ARES will support tactical space assets and conventional satellites. The Air Force intends that ARES will comprise a family of modular launch vehicles, which will provide affordable and responsive lift for all or most of the Defense Department payload manifest.

Aerospace studied the concept under Air Force Space Command’s Operationally Responsive Spacelift (ORS) Analysis of Alternatives effort. The concept was found to be highly responsive, with a 24-to-48 hour turnaround, and to have lower costs generally than either fully expendable or fully reusable vehicles, according to Bob Hickman, director of The Aerospace Corporation's Developmental Planning Directorate, in the company's Systems Planning and Engineering organization.

Hickman led the team that conducted the ORS Analysis of Alternatives for Air Force Space Command. The team consisted of employees from the company's Systems Planning and Engineering organization, Space Launch Operations, and Engineering and Technology Group.

Hickman said the cost savings are derived from the fact that the ARES concept expends less hardware mass than a fully expendable vehicle and requires less reusable hardware mass than a fully reusable vehicle.

The Air Force has accepted the findings from the ORS analysis and, with the assistance of Hickman’s team, has implemented these findings into the ARES demonstration and development plan. Lt. Gen. Brian Arnold, Commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command, formally recognized the members of the Aerospace team with letters of commendation for their critical contributions.

A solicitation for proposals for the first phase of this effort, the Concept Development and Demonstration Planning phase, was released last month. Contractor study work is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of this year. The first phase will set the groundwork for the Air Force to develop a subscale demonstration vehicle and associated ground hardware that will enable flight demonstrations in 2010.

The goals of the demonstrator are to reduce technical integration risks; to provide data for high-confidence estimates of full-scale system cost and operability; and to demonstrate the Air Force’s ability to field the system in a timely, affordable manner.

The demonstration program will be a joint effort between Air Force Space Command and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Following successful demonstration, the Air Force plans to pursue a full-scale operational system, ultimately supporting the full range of Air Force spacelift needs. Aerospace will continue to play an important technical role in the demonstration and development program.

The Aerospace Corporation, based in El Segundo, Calif., is an independent, nonprofit company that provides objective technical analyses and assessments for national security space programs and selected civil and commercial space programs in the national interest.