The 62-foot-tall rocket that stands on the launch pad on Wallops Island, off the Eastern Shore of Virginia, encapsulates much about the near future of space flight in the United States. It is a future where the federal government is a major player—and a paying customer—but many of the day-to-day duties are left to private companies and state agencies.
The Minotaur 1 is a commercially built rocket, but it owes much to the federal government. Its payload is an Air Force satellite. Many of its components, including the initial motor that will propel the rocket from zero to 3,300 mph in less than a minute, are leftovers from decommissioned Minuteman missiles. The launching site for this mission is NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, best remembered for putting two monkeys into space in early tests for the Mercury missions in 1959 and 1960. Lately, NASA’s launches at Wallops have been modest—mostly weather balloons and research rockets.
But the state governments of Virginia and Maryland are bringing more ambitious projects back to the remote island. Since 2006, four Minotaur 1 rockets have taken off from the states’ jointly operated Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), which leases facilities from NASA. This week’s 12-minute rocket flight will launch an imaging satellite aimed at helping U.S. troops in Afghanistan and other trouble spots in the region.
1 comment:
Didn't someone respond to a past BBYNews posting regarding rocket launches at Wallops Island as a tourist trap?
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