Wallops Flight Facility

The Wallops Flight Facility ( WFF ) ( IATA: WAL, ICAO: Kwal ), and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) or Wallops Iceland, named after the first owner of the island John Wallop, is, next to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Vandenberg Air Force Base, one of the oldest rocket launch sites in the world. The on the island of Iceland Wallops, Virginia (37 ° 50 '0 "N, 75 ° 29 ' 0" W37.833333333333 - 75.483333333333Koordinaten: 37 ° 50 '0 "N, 75 ° 29 ' 0" W) located launch site at NASA is a branch of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Use

From here starts are performed with an orbital inclination between 37 degrees and 70 degrees. The Wallops Flight Facility was also an emergency landing of the Space Shuttle.

The first rocket launch at Wallops Iceland took place on 4 July 1945. On December 4, 1959, sent from here the rhesus monkey Sam on a ballistic flight as part of the Mercury program. Other important tests were performed here, such as the test flights for the salvation storms of Mercury and Apollo program.

Today Wallops Iceland serves as a launch site for sounding rockets and the occasional launch smaller satellites. For satellite launches came in the years 1960 to 1994 Scout rocket used. Since then, a copy of the Conestoga rocket and some Pegasus rocket was used for orbital launches.

End of April 2007 launched a military satellite NFIRE and in September 2009 the satellite TacSat -3, both with the rocket type Minotaur -1. In September 2013, the lunar probe ladee was started with a Minotaur V rocket from Wallops.

Construction

The Wallops Flight Facility is divided into three parts, the Wallops Main Base, Wallops Mainland and Wallops Iceland Site Launch Site.

In the area of ​​Main Base includes the administration, facilities for research and telemetry, ground station for tracking, as well as the centers for start and telecommunications. On the grounds are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) and the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy to find.

The radar equipment, and the transmitting and receiving stations are located in the western part ( Wallops Mainland ) of the WFF. In the area of ​​Iceland Wallops Launch Site are the starting systems, radars, as well as assembly halls and warehouses.

History

The starting area Wallops Iceland was supported by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ( the forerunner of NASA) established in 1945. It was initially led by the Langley Research Center.

In 1958, the Langley Research Center, however, the line was after the founding of NASA Wallops withdrawn and Iceland became an independent institution of NASA. In 1974, the starting area in Wallops Flight Center was renamed in 1981 Wallops Flight Facility and assigned to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

1959-1961 testing of Mercury spacecraft and escape tower have been made here, even before the first manned launches were launched in the Mercury program from Kennedy Space Center. On August 21, 1959, attempt to start a Little Joe was made 1 rocket. Due to a technical problem, however, lit the rescue system 30 minutes before the regular start. The Mercury capsule rose to 600m high and fell after 20 seconds of flight time in the Atlantic Ocean.

On December 4, 1959, started with the rhesus monkeys Sam with a Little Joe 2 rocket, the first living with a U.S. missile. Were conducted biomedical tests for the planned manned space flights. A month later, on January 21, 1960 was again a Rhesus monkey, Miss Sam, started with a Little Joe 1B rocket on a suborbital flight. There were again conducted biomedical tests.

At a failure occurred on November 8, 1960, with the start of a Little Joe 5 rocket and Mercury spacecraft No. 3 The spacecraft did not separate from the rocket. On 28 April to 30 June 1960 there were two more partially successful launches of a Little Joe rocket with the Mercury spacecraft No. 14

With the first start and a sub-orbital flight of a complete Scout rocket on July 1, 1960, a further important project began. In a second start, the Scout rocket reached an altitude of 2414 km. On December 4, 1960, the first attempt to launch a satellite from WFF from. As the second stage of the Scout rocket but not lit, S -56 crashed the satellite Explorer into the Atlantic Ocean.

On February 16, 1961, for the first time with a Scout rocket, a satellite ( Explorer 9 ) successfully launched into orbit. The satellite burned up three years later in Earth's atmosphere.

With the launch of the satellite RFD -1 on 22 May 1963, the first successful re-entry during a suborbital flight was tested. Two months later, the heat protection material was tested in a further re-entry test. Communication problems during reentry were examined at the start of the satellite RAM C -1 on 19 October 1967.

On 18 June 1976, the suborbital probe Gravity Probe A for experimental testing Einstein's theory of general relativity has been started.

In July 2003, the governors Robert Ehrlich of Maryland and Mark Warner of Virginia, signed an agreement to operate a commercial spaceport. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) was completed in 2005, and on December 16, 2006 launched the first Minotaur rocket.

Launch pads

So far off from Wallops Iceland more than 14,000 rockets.