Image of the Day Gallery
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Building the Next Generation of Spacecraft
From left to right John Meyer, Curtis Bahr and Richard Venable turn over an 18-foot diameter internal mandrel segment for Marshall's new Vertical Trim Tool. The Vertical Trim Tool will be used to trim barrel sections for Ares I Upper Stage hardware.
NASA's Ares rockets, named for the Greek god associated with Mars, will return humans to the moon. Future astronauts will ride to orbit on Ares I, which uses a single five-segment solid rocket booster, a derivative of the space shuttle's solid rocket booster, for the first stage. A liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen J-2X engine derived from the J-2 engine used on Apollo's second stage will power the crew exploration vehicle's second stage.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given