When will the rocket launch from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility take place?
Sometime after 8 o’clock Thursday night, the Air Force hopes to put five small satellites into orbit with a rare launch from Virginia’s Eastern Shore. If skies clear, the rocket’s climb to orbit could be visible throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. The U.S. Air Force TacSat-3 satellite is set for liftoff sometime between 8 and 11 p.m. from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. It will ride atop a four-stage Minotaur 1 rocket. A launch attempt Tuesday night was scrubbed because of clouds and a threat of rain. Thursday night’s Wallops forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with a slight chance of a thunderstorm. If successful, this would be only the third launch to orbit from Wallops, which Maryland and Virginia officials hope will become a much busier spaceport for both commercial and government satellites. The first Minotaur launch from Wallops Island, in December 2006, was a daylight spectacular visible from Baltimore. The second, in April 2007, was obscured by clouds. A 1995 attempt to re
An Air Force Minotaur 1 rocket was successfully launched at 2:48 a.m. EDT today from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Va. The four-stage rocket carried the Defense Department’s Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE) satellite. This was the second Minotaur 1 launch from Wallops in just over four months. The previous mission on Dec. 16, 2006, carried the Air Force Research Laboratory’s TacSat-2 satellite. “This launch again demonstrates the unique capabilities of the Wallops Flight Facility, which includes the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, to efficiently support the placing of satellites into Earth orbit. NASA is particularly appreciative of the support provided by the US Coast Guard, US Fish and Wildlife, Virginia Marine Resource Commission, and state and county security and emergency preparedness organizations,” said Dr. John Campbell, Director of the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. “Working with the Air Force, MDA, and their contractors, the preparatio
