Video: Aerial View of Ares I-X Flight Test

I really don't think that it is tenable for people to claim no recontact after looking at this video. Looks to be massive recontact, enough to throw the first stage off of its trajectory immediately.

In reviewing the video several times there was definitely a spurt of thrust from the first stage at or shortly after staging. That would result in a very bad day for a crew.

It didn't look like a bump so much as a jackknife. As if the boosters sep charges didn't sever it cleanly when the retro rockets were trying to drag it away from the upper stage.
As for the parachute, it seems to have blown out due to the extra weight. Could that have affected the second cute as well? (if so, then why didn't the third one fail when the first two gave out?)

Well that explains the dent. Is there any footage following the upper stage to impact?

You can see at separation the white plume trailing from the decceleration motors, but it's only on the left side. It looks very much like it's an asymetrical decceleration that causes the lower stage to turn sharply anti clockwise, which turns the upper stage the other way either by direct contact or because the seperation charges fire off a rotating structure.

Looking at the original close up video too I thought at the time that the decceleration seems to only be firing on that side (the near side in that video), but assumed that it was just hard to see the other side from that angle. Now it is much clearer that they didn't all fire to give a symetrical decceleration.

After reviewing several different videos of Ares 1-X, there appear to be no recontact. There is no significant debris field which would be evident if recontact was made at that velocity. There is also no damage found in the area of the 1st stage where recontact would have been made. The damage that was observed was on the lower end close to SRM where it impacted the sea. The mockup 2nd stage appear to turn sideways due to failure of separation charges. The separation did not divert 1st stage from its trajectory, it landed in the expected area despite the parachute malfunction.

Thousands of simulations gave that same exact result. There was no recontact. The dent was from water impact causing a buckling and structural failure above the aft segment stiffener rings after the two 'chutes failed.

All the talk about recontact was highly speculative to begin with and obviously wrong at this point. NASA has stated that there was no recontact and I for one have no reason to doubt their word. There is no reported damage to the forward section of the first stage either. What you see in the videos is very misleading. They were shot with very long lenses which compress the scene and make determining depth very difficult. It's one thing to be skeptical but this is starting to border on conspiracy theory wackiness.

The question that's foremost on my mind is what would happen to the crew in the event of a second stage propulsion failure on separation? Can the proposed LAS deal with a flat spin like that? Pretty scary stuff if you're an astronaut.

Interesting that they chalk the main parachute failures up to 'Oh well, it was a test and we learned something'. To me, redesigned parachutes that were supposed to be stronger than those currently used is a pretty big problem. I'm not saying that it can't and won't be fixed but to me it's a big 'OOPS'. And the fact that it had all of the extra weight of the dummy 5th stage just shows me that the test wasn't planned well. Interestingly the single pilot chute didn't fail under the extra weight. Why didn't they have something that would jettison the extra weight at burnout? Because they used metal ballast? Why didn't they use ball bearings and then blow a hatch so that all of the ballast fell out? What of the actual Ares 1 design was tested? The booster was only the a 4 segment, the avionics wasn't ARES? The only really new Ares 1 components were the parachutes which had a 66.67% failure rate.

"Thousands of simulations gave that same exact result"

I assume you are referring to the separation. So what simulated moments/forces caused the second stage to rotate?

Jettison ball bearings from high altitude? Sorry, but I don't think that's such a good idea - unless they all had their own little parachutes..;-)

"Interesting that they chalk the main parachute failures up to 'Oh well, it was a test and we learned something'."

I don't think anyone said "Oh well". They will obviously work on it.

"Why didn't they use ball bearings and then blow a hatch so that all of the ballast fell out?"

Your criticisms aren't well thought-out, and demonstrate that you don't understand how difficult test flights are. FYI, ballast doesn't just "fall out" when you're on a ballistic trajectory at 130,000 ft. What you're suggesting requires additional pyros (and you don't want pyros unless they're absolutely necessary, and ballast ejection isn't necessary) and the creation of a dedicated hatch for ballast (which is another penetration and another thing to analyze and 1 more thing than could fail). Not to mention that ejecting ballast introduces lots of objects that could recontact the SRB or tear the chutes later in the descent.

Ejecting ballast would be needless complexity for minimal benefit, which could be end up backfiring.

Dave

Your response isn't well thought out. They could have had a hopper with a funnel shape in the 5th segment and a hatch at the bottom internal to the booster core. Once the pilot chute stabilized the empty booster shell the hatch could have been blown and gravity would have done the rest as the booster was being slowed by the parachute. Very simple design with almost no moving parts. As Mr. Griffin likes to do, could have been designed on the back of a napkin.

And if your worried about these falling into the sea what about the dummy upper stage and dummy Orion? Sorry if they can design a rocket staging they could have easily done this.

But perhaps it wasn't done because the parachutes were actually designed to handle the extra weight? If this is the case, then as I said, one of the few things that is actually Ares equipment failed miserably.

And I guess your correct, no one said "Oh well". But the program managers were so effusive during the after launch press conference I was worried one of them would get a separated shoulder patting themselves on their backs.

Almost like they forgot that the NASA launches 4 manned Shuttles each year.

You're not really being serious with this ball bearing idea are you? It's ridiculous plan (sort of like Ares 1-X actually).

Phenomenal footage, particularly of the latter boost phase, one/two sep, and stage one descent. It certainly doesn't appear (to my tired old eyes, at least,) that recontact occurred, but MAN, the parachute shortcomings are very unnerving.

If, by some chance, Ares I continues, I hope these are easy bugs to work out.