Latest news with #WallopsFlightFacility
The Independent
11-08-2025
- Science
- The Independent
What's that in the sky?! ‘Streak of fire' expected over Eastern seaboard Tuesday morning
A 'streak of fire,' as one report put it, is expected to be viewed over the Eastern seaboard Tuesday morning as NASA launches a sounding rocket. The space agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia has announced the scheduled launch of a sounding rocket, a small rocket that flies to suborbital space, carrying experiments developed by college students. The launch is expected to happen between 6 and 9 a.m. EDT on Tuesday. 'For those on the Delmarva Peninsula, weather permitting, you may catch a glimpse of the rocket in the sky,' the Wallops Flight Facility wrote on Facebook. A map shared by the Wallops Flight Facility showed when viewers in different states may be able to see the rocket. Within 10 seconds after takeoff, people on the Eastern Shore of Maryland will have line-of-sight access to the rocket. Between 10 to 30 seconds after takeoff, those in Philadelphia, Dover, Delaware, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia, will be able to see the rocket. About 30 to 32 seconds after takeoff, people in Trenton, New Jersey and Charlottesville, Virginia, will have sight of the rocket. Even viewers in northeast North Carolina will be able to see the rocket 30 to 32 seconds after takeoff. 'The Terrier-Improved Malemute rocket is expected to reach an altitude of about 100 miles (162 kilometers) before descending by parachute into the Atlantic Ocean to be recovered,' according to a blog post from the Wallops Flight Facility. The rocket is carrying experiments developed by eight university and community college teams part of NASA's RockSat program. 'The RockSat program provides NASA-unique technical training and authentic, hands-on experiences, that prepare and equip students to enter the United States' aerospace industry,' Victoria Stoffel, Wallops STEM team lead, said in a statement. Some of the projects include the University of Alabama Huntsville's deployable heat shield that generates electricity and Northwest Nazarene University's robotic arm, 'designed to track and capture objects in space,' according to the flight facility.
Gizmodo
20-06-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
NASA Aircraft Set to Perform Wild Low-Altitude Stunts Around These U.S. Cities
NASA is getting ready to fly two planes over mid-Atlantic states and parts of California, where they will be carrying out special maneuvers at a close distance while collecting valuable data about our changing planet. The two research aircraft, named P-3 Orion (N426NA) and a King Air B200 (N46L), are set to fly over Baltimore, Philadelphia, the Virginia cities of Hampton, Hopewell, and Richmond, in addition to the Los Angeles Basin, Salton Sea, and Central Valley, according to NASA. The flights will take place along the eastern coast between Sunday, June 22 and Thursday, June 26, and in California between Sunday, June 29 to Wednesday, July 2. It'll be a good opportunity to catch the two planes as they will fly at lower altitudes than most commercial flights, while pulling off specialized maneuvers like vertical spirals between 1,000 and 10,000 feet (304 to 3,048 meters), circling above power plants, landfills, and urban areas. The planes will also make missed approaches at local airports and low-altitude flybys along runways to collect air samples near the surface. The P-3, operated out of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, is a four-engine turboprop aircraft, carrying six science instruments. The King Air B200 is a twin-engine aircraft owned by Dynamic Aviation and contracted by NASA. The aircraft will carry out 40 hours of data collection for NASA's Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) on each U.S. coast. SARP is an eight-week summer internship program at NASA that provides undergraduate students with hands-on experience in various scientific areas. The low-altitude flights will be used to gather atmospheric data through the on board science instruments, which will be operated by the students. 'Despite SARP being a learning experience for both the students and mentors alike, our P-3 is being flown and performing maneuvers in some of most complex and restricted airspace in the country,' Brian Bernth, chief of flight operations at NASA Wallops, said in a statement. 'Tight coordination and crew resource management is needed to ensure that these flights are executed with precision but also safely.' NASA uses low altitude flights for Earth science, gathering high-resolution data that satellites can't capture at the same level of detail. These flights have typically supported research on climate change, natural disasters, and atmospheric science. The upcoming flights will take place near populated areas, so there will be plenty of chances to see the aircraft flying overhead.
