The Ares class of space propulsion vehicles was part of NASA’s Constellation crewed spaceflight initiative, which ran from 2005 to 2009 and aimed to produce the successors to the Space Shuttle missions. With research facilities based at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ares rockets were designed as boosters for launching crews into space. Here, an Ares I-X test rocket launches at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2009.
