Posted on 04/16/2013 12:54:54 PM PDT by Pyro7480
On one of Virginia's small barrier islands, a NASA facility that operates in relative obscurity outside scientific circles is preparing to be thrust into the spotlight.
On Wednesday, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to conduct the first test launch of its Antares rocket under a NASA program in which private companies deliver supplies to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, the unmanned rocket's practice payload will be vaulted into orbit from Wallops Island before burning up in the atmosphere on its return to Earth several months later....
A successful launch would pave the way for Dulles-based Orbital to demonstrate that it can connect its unmanned Cygnus cargo ship with the space station this summer.
(Excerpt) Read more at hamptonroads.com ...
Space ping!
Delmarva ping!
Correction: the author’s name is “Brock Vergakis”. The “B” is missing above.
Liftoff is set for a three-hour window beginning at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).
SpaceX’s competitor?
Yup. They got the other commercial resupply contract to the International Space Station.
There is also a a 4 day window. Besides weather conditions, the other big issue for launch delays is boats in the water. Listening to them on ustream when that happens can be comical at times.
We’re going to friends to watch - they live on the water directly across one of the inland bays from the launch pad. We watched the last night launch from their house. Really cool.
I got picked in the “lottery” for one of NASA’s social media “meet ups” and got to see components of the rocket and the actual launch pad where it will be going off.
Anyone that is on Face Book should “like” the Wallops Flight Facility - their pictures are awesome and they are wonderful about updates and chatter. They are also on Twitter, but I don’t use that and so am not familiar with how they work that, although they were doing that first and so have many more followers there than FB.
Wahoo we have a “Delmarva ping!” cool add the Eastern Shore mom if you would
Gabz is the manager of the Delmarva list. :)
Any idea where the launch can be seen at all? Looked at their site and earlier recent articles but there’s no info on that.
I plan to watch the launch tomorrow from Chincoteague. Hopefully, the weather won’t postpone it until Thursday, when I won’t be able to come down.
Unfortunately, I lost the ping list quite some time ago in a hard drive crash, and then wasn’t around much for a while.
I’m willing to start another one if there is interest. Please ping any one you know on Delmarva to this thread and I will staart collecting names - or just post name to me.
They posted pictures on their face book page yesterday that show distances of where it can be seen in the sky. But it will also be live on NASA TV - not sure which cable and satellite companies carry that, although I do believe Dish does have it.
Pyro was posting as I was typing :-)
We had originally planned to watch from the Island, but our friends didn’t go out of town as they originally thought, so that’s why we’re staying “in county.” Where on the Island are you going to be watching from?
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