Altair Traditional Cache
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Constellation Program was to replace the Space Shuttle. These included the Orion crew capsule, the Earth Departure Stage and the Altair lunar lander.
Altair (formerly known as the Lunar Surface Access Module, LSAM) would have been the main transport vehicle for lunar-bound astronauts. The Altair design was much larger than the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), with almost five times the volume, occupying a total of 1,120 cubic feet (32 m3) compared with the Apollo lander's 235 cubic feet (6.7 m3). It was to stand 32 feet (9.8 m) tall and span 49 feet (15 m) wide from landing gear tip to tip.
Like its Apollo LM predecessor, Altair consisted of two parts: an ascent stage which houses the four-person crew; and a descent stage which has the landing legs, the majority of the crew's consumables (oxygen and water), and scientific equipment. Unlike the Apollo LM, Altair would have touched down in the lunar polar regions favored by NASA for future lunar base construction.[16] Altair, like the LM, is not reusable; the ascent stage would be discarded after use.
The Altair descent stage was to be powered by four RL-10 rocket engines that are used for the Centaur upper stage used on the Atlas V rocket. Unlike the current RL-10 engines in use, the newer RL-10s would be able to throttle down to as low as 10% rated thrust (the current specifications allow for 20%), thus allowing the use of Altair for both the lunar orbit insertion (LOI) and landing stages of the lunar mission. The ascent stage was to be powered by a single engine, likely a hypergolic engine similar or identical to the main engine of the Orion CSM, using the descent stage as a launchpad and as a platform for future base construction. There was a small possibility that the original plan of using LOX/CH4 – fueled engines on board the Block II (lunar) Orion CSM and Altair ascent stage could come to pass.
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