According to a November 2009 report in the newspaper Florida Today, NASA astronauts want the next launch vehicle, which replaces the space shuttle, to be ten times safer than what is currently possible.

On Friday morning, November 27, 2009, the space shuttle Atlantis landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a successful mission to the International Space Station.

The Ares 1-X rocket, launched by NASA on its first test flight Wednesday, October 28, 2009, performed normally except for a parachute problem and performed even better than expected with respect to its thrust oscillations.

On Wednesday, October 28, 2009, NASA launched its first test rocket, the Ares 1-X, from its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center on the coast of Florida.

At 11:20 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, October 27, 2009, NASA gave up trying to launch its first test flight of its new Ares 1-X rocket. The entire morning was besieged with adverse weather conditions, a ship in restricted waters, and a stuck probe cover.

NASA officials approved on Friday, October 23, 2009, the first test flight of its developmental Ares 1 rocket that will eventually take astronauts into space. The Ares 1-X test flight is scheduled to liftoff on Tuesday, October 27, 2009.

NASA announced on September 22, 2009, that the U.S. space agency will launch a test flight of the Ares I test rocket (Ares I-X) on Tuesday, October 27, 2009, as long as all checks and tests are verified beforehand.

The NASA LRO/LCROSS mission lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida, at 5:32 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 18, 2009, for its robotic mission to the Moon. The lunar mission will collect more data about the Moon than any other previous mission, and it is the first U.S. unmanned lunar mission of the 21st century, leading to the NASA manned missions of the Constellation program.

NASA announced on May 31, 2009, that its Launch Pad 39B at Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center, has been transferred from the Shuttle Program to the new Constellation Program. Pad 39B will be readied for the first flight test of its new Ares I rocket, now scheduled for August 2009.

If NASA’s space shuttle fleet needs one more year to finish the International Space Station, leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have agreed to provide $2.5 billion to NASA for the one-year extension of the program.