NASA's Space Shuttle Program will end with Space Shuttle Discovery's last mission, STS-133, scheduled for liftoff on September 16, 2010.

NASA is already working on the next phase in space exploration with its new Constellation Program. Three days ago, NASA launched its first test rocket in this new program, the Ares 1-X. NASA designed the new spacecraft to one day take a crew to the International Space Station and then to the moon and beyond.

On, October 28, 2009, NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. from NASA's Kennedy Space Center a flight lasted approximately six minutes from launch to splashdown.

The Ares I-X flight provided NASA with data they will use to confirm the vehicle's hardware, its facilities, and ground operations, in preparation for sending astronauts into space, beyond earth's orbit.

The new space transportation system consists of two main parts, the Ares 1 rocket, and the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. The Ares 1, powered by a variant of the J-2 rockets used to propel the Apollo spacecrafts to the moon, includes an upper stage that will provide guidance, navigation, and control needed for the ascent flight. Other components include reaction and roll control, separation and avionics systems.

Reaction and roll control directs the vehicle’s roll and attitude during ascent. The separation systems disconnect the first stage from the upper stage. The avionics system provides the supporting hardware and software needed to control the Ares.

The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is similar to the Apollo spacecraft in that it houses the Command module/Service module, CM/SM. However, the Orion spacecraft will accommodate four astronauts.

The CM contains life support systems supplying food, water, and oxygen to the astronauts. It also has control and instrument panels, periscopes, and windows.

The SM carries the rocket engines and fuel supplies needed to propel the Orion into and out of, orbit.

NASA plans to launch the first manned flight of the Constellation Program no later than 2015. NASA is also forecasting the first lunar mission for the 2020 timeframe, with missions beyond the moon, possibly to Mars, to follow.

October is a busy month in America's history of flight. Charles 'Chuck' Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947.

With the successful flight of America's new fleet of rockets, we will have gone from the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound, to the first astronauts to travel to Mars, within a 65-year time span.

• "You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself." ~ Galileo Galilei
• "You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done." ~ Chuck Yeager

• "The Eagle has landed" ~ Neil Armstrong (from the surface of the moon)
• "I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime." ~ Buzz Aldrin