NASA tests next-generation rocket for first time

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- NASA on Wednesday launched the Ares I-X rocket in Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It's the first flight test for the agency's next-generation spacecraft and launch vehicle system.

The Ares 1-X test rocket lifts off on a  six-minute suborbital flight from launch pad  39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape  Canaveral, Florida October 28, 2009.  (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Rocketing into the Florida sky, the 327-foot rocket thunders away from the 39B launch pad at 11:30 EDT (1530 GMT), marking the first time a new vehicle has launched from the complex since the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

The mission lasted two minutes, during which constant data were received over 700 sensors placed throughout the rocket.

At about the T+2 minute point in the flight, the upper stage simulator and first stage separated at approximately 130,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. The unpowered simulator then splashed down in the ocean. The first stage was fired for a controlled ocean landing with parachutes that will allow recovery by one of NASA's booster recovery ships, while the other ship tracks the upper stage. It capped its easterly flight at a suborbital altitude of 150,000 feet after the separation of its first stage, a four-segment solid rocket booster.