WALLOPS ISLAND
The fourth time’s the charm.
After three aborted attempts, the Minotaur I rocket left the planet Tuesday night at just before 8 p.m., heading heavenward from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore.
As it lifted off, a crowd of about three dozen onlookers watched from outside an observation station across the marsh from the launch pad.
“Whoooooo!” yelled Billie Reed, executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority.
The $60 million, 69-foot rocket is carrying three payloads. The primary load is the TacSat-3, a joint military project designed to test the ability of a satellite to provide real-time data upon request from field commanders on the ground.
The secondary payloads include NASA’s PharmaSat, which will conduct experiments on yeast cells, and three CubeSats that will measure electron collection, radiation testing and guidance and control systems.
This is the third Minotaur to launch from Wallops since 2006. This launch was postponed twice earlier this month for inclement weather and once for a technical problem.
To watch the launch video, go to the NASA Wallops Web site: http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/webcast/ [1]
For the complete story, including the Eastern Shore’s plans for the commercial space business, read Saturday’s Virginian-Pilot.
The Minotaur I rocket launched Tuesday just before 8 p.m. from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore. (Randall Greenwell/The Virginian-Pilot
A Minotaur I rocket carrying the Air Force Research Laboratory's TacSat-3 satellite launches from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility near Chincoteague on Tuesday. This was the fourth attempt for this mission. (Randall Greenwell | The Virginian-Pilot)
A video at the link.
NASA's Wallops Island rocket launch