Wallops Flight Facility
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Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on
Wallops Island Wallops Island is a island in Accomack County, Virginia, part of the Virginia Barrier Islands that stretch along the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. It is just south of Chincoteague Island, a popular tourist destination. W ...
on the
Eastern Shore of Virginia The Eastern Shore of Virginia consists of two counties ( Accomack and Northampton) on the Atlantic coast detached from the mainland of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The region is part of the Delmarva Peninsula and is se ...
,
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, just east of the
Delmarva Peninsula The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula and proposed state on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia ...
and approximately north-northeast of
Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
. The facility is operated by the
Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...
in
Greenbelt, Maryland Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and a suburb of Washington, D.C. At the 2020 census, the population was 24,921. Greenbelt is the first and the largest of the three experimental and controversial New D ...
, and primarily serves to support science and exploration missions for
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
and other Federal agencies. WFF includes an extensively instrumented range to support launches of more than a dozen types of
sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are used to ...
s; small expendable suborbital and orbital rockets;
high-altitude balloon High-altitude balloons are crewed or uncrewed balloons, usually filled with helium or hydrogen, that are released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between above sea level. In 2002, a balloon named BU60-1 reached a record altitude of . ...
flights carrying scientific instruments for atmospheric and astronomical research; and, using its Research Airport,
flight test Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...
s of aeronautical research aircraft, including
unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
s. There have been over 16,000 launches from the rocket testing range at Wallops since its founding in 1945 in the quest for information on the flight characteristics of airplanes, launch vehicles, and spacecraft, and to increase the knowledge of the Earth's upper atmosphere and the environment of
outer space Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
. The launch vehicles vary in size and power from the small
Super Loki Loki, officially designated 76mm HEAA Rocket T220, was an American unguided anti-aircraft rocket based on the German Taifun. Like the Taifun, Loki never saw service in its original role, but later found widespread use as a sounding rocket. It wa ...
meteorological rockets to orbital-class vehicles. The Wallops Flight Facility also supports science missions for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA) and occasionally for foreign governments and commercial organizations. Wallops also supports development tests and exercises involving
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
aircraft and ship-based electronics and weapon systems in the
Virginia Capes The Virginia Capes are the two capes, Cape Charles to the north and Cape Henry to the south, that define the entrance to Chesapeake Bay on the eastern coast of North America. In 1610, a supply ship learned of the famine at Jamestown when it ...
operating area, near the entrance to the
Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...
. In addition to its fixed-location instrumentation assets, the WFF range includes mobile
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
,
telemetry Telemetry is the in situ data collection, collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic data transmission, transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Gr ...
receivers, and command transmitters that can be transported by
cargo plane A cargo aircraft (also known as freight aircraft, freighter, airlifter or cargo jet) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of cargo rather than passengers. Such aircraft usually do not incorporate passenger a ...
s to locations around the world, in order to establish a temporary range where no other instrumentation exists, to ensure safety, and to collect data in order to enable and support suborbital rocket launches from remote sites. The WFF mobile range assets have been used to support rocket launches from locations in the Arctic and Antarctic regions,
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
, Africa, Europe,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, and at sea. Workers at Wallops include approximately 1,000 full-time NASA
civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
employees and the employees of contractors, about 30
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
personnel, and about 100 employees of NOAA.


History

In 1945, NASA's predecessor agency, the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets ...
(NACA), established a rocket launch site on
Wallops Island Wallops Island is a island in Accomack County, Virginia, part of the Virginia Barrier Islands that stretch along the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. It is just south of Chincoteague Island, a popular tourist destination. W ...
under the direction of the Langley Research Center. This site was designated the Pilotless Aircraft Research Station and conducted high-speed aerodynamic research to supplement wind tunnel and laboratory investigations into the problems of flight. In 1958, Congress established NASA, which absorbed Langley Research Center and other NACA field centers and research facilities. At that time, the Pilotless Aircraft Research Station became a separate facility, Wallops Station, operating directly under NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1959, NASA acquired the former
Naval Air Station Chincoteague Naval Auxiliary Air Station Chincoteague was a U.S. Navy Auxiliary Air Station near Chincoteague Island, Virginia. In 1941, the United States entered World War II; early the following year, the Germans torpedoed two merchant ships off the Assatea ...
, and engineering and administrative activities were moved to this location. In 1974, the Wallops Station was named Wallops Flight Center. The name was changed to Wallops Flight Facility in 1981, when it became part of Goddard Space Flight Center. In the early years, research at Wallops concentrated on obtaining aerodynamic data at transonic and low supersonic speeds. Between 1959 and 1961, Project Mercury capsules were tested at Wallops in support of NASA's manned space flight program - the
Mercury program Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
- before astronauts were launched from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...
in Florida. Some of these tests using the Little Joe
booster rocket A booster rocket (or engine) is either the first stage of a multistage launch vehicle, or else a shorter-burning rocket used in parallel with longer-burning sustainer rockets to augment the space vehicle's takeoff thrust and payload capabil ...
were designed to flight-qualify components of the spacecraft, including the escape and recovery systems and some of the life support systems. Two rhesus monkeys, Sam and Miss Sam, were sent aloft as pioneers for astronauts; both were recovered safely. The first payload launched into orbit from Wallops Island was Explorer IX, atop a
Scout rocket The Scout family of rockets were American launch vehicles designed to place small satellites into orbit around the Earth. The Scout multistage rocket was the first orbital launch vehicle to be entirely composed of Solid rocket, solid fuel stages. ...
, on February 15, 1961. On September 6, 2013, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (
LADEE The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE; ) was a NASA lunar exploration and technology demonstration mission. It was launched on a Minotaur V rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on September 7, 2013. During its se ...
) was launched from Wallops, atop a
Minotaur V The Minotaur V is an American expendable launch system derived from the Minotaur IV, itself a derivative of the LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBM. It was developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, (now absorbed into Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems) ...
rocket. This was the first time that an American lunar mission had been launched from anywhere but
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
. Wallops Island is currently experiencing beach erosion of 10 to 22 feet (3 to 7 meters) a year, due in part to the
current sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...
; some access roads and parking lots have had to be rebuilt several times over the past five years. NASA has responded by continually fortifying the shoreline with sand. A permanent ground control station for NASA's
RQ-4 Global Hawk The Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is a high-altitude, remotely-piloted surveillance aircraft of the 1990s–2020s. It was initially designed by Ryan Aeronautical (now part of Northrop Grumman), and known as Tier II+ during development. The ...
drone is at Wallops Flight Facility.


Facilities

The WFF Main Base is located on the Eastern Shore of Virginia on the
Delmarva Peninsula The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula and proposed state on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia ...
about west of Chincoteague, Virginia; about north of
Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...
, and southeast of
Salisbury, Maryland Salisbury () is a city in and the county seat of Wicomico County, Maryland, Wicomico County, Maryland, United States, and the largest city in Eastern Shore of Maryland, the state's Eastern Shore region. The population was 33,050 at the 2020 United ...
. The WFF consists of three separate parcels of land totaling 6,200
acres The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ya ...
(25 km²): the Main Base, the Mainland, and the Wallops Island Launch Site. The Mainland and the Wallops Island Launch Site are about southeast of the Main Base.


Airspace

Wallops operates controlled airspace with
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
(FAA) qualified
air traffic controller Air traffic control specialists, abbreviated ATCS, are personnel responsible for the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of air traffic in the global air traffic control system. Usually stationed in air traffic control centers and control ...
s including: *The WFF Airport Control Zone to within a radius of the airport *Restricted Area R-6604 connecting WFF airspace and offshore warning areas.


Fixed facilities

Major Wallops facilities include FAA-certified
runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...
s; an experimental UAV runway; and crash, fire, and rescue services. WFF has facilities for the receipt, inspection, assembly, checkout and storage of
rocket motor A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accordance ...
s and other hazardous
pyrotechnic device Pyrotechnics is the science and craft of creating such things as fireworks, safety matches, oxygen candles, explosive bolts and other fasteners, parts of automotive airbags, as well as gas-pressure blasting in mining, quarrying, and demolition. ...
s. The Wallops Island Launch Site includes six
launch pad A launch pad is an above-ground facility from which a rocket-powered missile or space vehicle is vertically launched. The term ''launch pad'' can be used to describe just the central launch platform ( mobile launcher platform), or the entir ...
s, three
blockhouse A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stro ...
s for launch control, and assembly buildings to support the preparation and launching of suborbital and orbital launch vehicles. The Wallops Research Range includes ground-based and mobile systems, and a range control center. Its radar facilities and systems are used for tracking and surveillance. Telemetry facilities include a variety of antennas, receivers, and display instrumentation systems. Command uplink and optical tracking facilities are included as part of the range. The range also provides premier digital photographic and video services including operation of numerous still cameras, high speed and video systems for Range Safety support, surveillance, and post-launch analysis (e.g., failure analysis), project documentation (e.g., fabrication and test), administrative documentation, and archiving for environmental studies. In addition, WFF has a variety of communications systems and facilities to route voice, video, and data in support of launch processing, flight, and test operations. The WFF Research Airport is located on the Main Base. There are three runways (from to long), two
taxiway A taxiway is a path for aircraft at an airport connecting runways with aprons, hangars, terminals and other facilities. They mostly have a hard surface such as asphalt or concrete, although smaller general aviation airports sometimes use gravel ...
s, three ramps, and one hazardous cargo loading area in active service. Two ramps adjoin the two active hangars, and a third ramp adjoins the Crash, Fire and Rescue building. The primary research runway has a test section with a variety of surface textures and materials for runway research projects. Weather measurements and predictions are critical to all Research Airport operations, rocket and balloon launches, and in safely conducting hazardous operations on the ground. Wallops meteorological services provide measurements of upper atmospheric and magnetic phenomena to augment and enable the collection of scientific data by sensors aboard flight vehicles. The
S-band The S band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum covering frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz (GHz). Thus it crosses the conventional ...
Doppler radar A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the Doppler effect to produce velocity data about objects at a distance. It does this by bouncing a microwave signal off a desired target and analyzing how the object's motion has altered the f ...
system at Wallops, known as SPANDAR, is capable of automatic unambiguous tracking of targets up to 60,000 kilometers away. It can detect a single raindrop of 3 millimeters at a range of 10 kilometers and cloud water content as little as 1 gram per cubic meter. SPANDAR's sensitivity with its dish antenna can detect small changes in the
refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or ...
of air caused by sea breeze fronts, gust fronts, and various forms of
clear air turbulence In meteorology, clear-air turbulence (CAT) is the turbulent movement of air masses in the absence of any visual clues, such as clouds, and is caused when bodies of air moving at widely different speeds meet. The atmospheric region most suscepti ...
.


Mobile systems

The Wallops mobile range instrumentation includes telemetry, radar, command and power systems. These assets are used as needed to supplement instrumentation at existing ranges, or to establish a temporary range to ensure safety and collect data to support the rocket customers in a remote location where no other range instrumentation exists. This complement of transportable systems can be deployed to provide complete range capabilities at remote locations around the world. While Wallops Island is the prime location for range services, major sounding rocket campaigns have been supported at
Poker Flat The Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) is a launch facility and rocket range for sounding rockets in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on a site at Chatanika, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Fairbanks and 1.5 degrees south of the Arc ...
,
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
; Andoya,
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
; and
Kwajalein Kwajalein Atoll (; Marshallese: ) is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English-speaking residents (about 1,000 mostly U.S. civilia ...
Island,
Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...
. The Wallops Mobile Instrumentation is integrated with NASA and
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...
networks and can be used to supplement established ranges in support of rocket launches.


Range technology development

Since 2001, engineers at NASA Wallops Flight Facility have been developing new range technologies, systems and approaches to improve the cost and responsiveness of launch and flight test activities, within the constraints of available funding and program schedules. Specifically, NASA Wallops has been leading two range technology development projects: th
Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) and the Low Cost TDRSS Transceiver (LCT2)
AFSS is a project to develop an autonomous on-board system that could augment or replace traditional ground-commanded Range Safety flight termination systems. The AFSS would use redundant sensors and processors on board a launch vehicle to monitor its trajectory, and if necessary initiate pyrotechnic devices to terminate the flight. LCT2 is an effort to produce a relatively low-cost transceiver to allow launch vehicles to communicate through NASA's
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System The U.S. Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) is a network of American communications satellites (each called a tracking and data relay satellite, TDRS) and ground stations used by NASA for space communications. The system was desig ...
(TDRSS) after they have gone over the horizon from the launch site. LCT2 is being pursued as part of the Space Based Range Demonstration and Certification (SBRDC) program (formerly calle
Space Based Telemetry and Range Safety (STARS)
in cooperation with NAS


Missions

WFF's primary mission areas are as follows:
Sounding Rockets

Scientific Balloons

Aircraft

Range and Mission Management

Small Launch Vehicle Research

Mission Planning Lab
With its sounding rocket, aircraft, and balloon flights carrying scientific payloads, its aeronautical systems testing, its range support for Space Shuttle launches, and its educational outreach activities, WFF supports all of NASA's Mission Directorates and practically all of their respective themes:
Science Mission Directorate
*
Earth Science
*
Solar System Exploration
*

*
Heliophysics

Exploration Mission Directorate
*
Constellation Systems
*

*


Aeronautics Mission Directorate
*


Space Operations Mission Directorate
*

*

*


Commercial spaceport

In 1998, the
Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA), commonly known as Virginia Space, is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia focused on bringing Private spaceflight, commercial spaceflig ...
, later joined by
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, built the
Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) is a commercial space launch facility located at the southern tip of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and south of Chincoteague, Virgi ...
at Wallops on land leased from NASA. In December 2006, the facility made its first launch.


Visitor center

The Wallops Visitor Center has a variety of hands-on exhibits and hosts weekly educational activities and programs to enable children to explore and learn about the technologies designed and used by NASA researchers and scientists. In addition, one Saturday each month, NASA invites
model rocketry A model rocket are small rockets designed to reach low altitudes (e.g., for model) and be recovered by a variety of means. According to the United States National Association of Rocketry (NAR) Safety Code, model rockets are constructed of ...
enthusiasts to launch their own rockets from the WFF rocket launch site. NASA personnel also participate, launching models of various rockets and explaining the
spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...
they carry in real life. The schedule for sounding rocket launches from WFF is posted on its official Web site.


Education

For many years WFF was home to the NSIP Sub-SEM and SEM projects. NSIP stands for the NASA Student Involvement Project, the Sub-SEM project was to design one of four experiments that would be inserted into an ORION-II one-stage rocket and launched above 98 percent of the atmosphere, and experience over 30 Gs of centrifugal force, while SEM was to design an experiment that would be flown on a future Space Shuttle mission. Each project gave 16 students and four teachers (four students and one teacher from each high school) the opportunity to spend an almost all-expense-paid week at WFF. Normally the students and teachers stayed in the Mariner Motel, now a Holiday Inn, conducting experiments and learning about the facility. Following the presidential mandate and budget cuts the entire NSIP program, SEM and Sub-SEM included, was shut down.


Accidents

On April 2, 1957, a Lockheed P2V-6 Neptune exploded in midair after takeoff from what was then known as
Naval Auxiliary Air Station Chincoteague Naval Auxiliary Air Station Chincoteague was a U.S. Navy Auxiliary Air Station near Chincoteague Island, Virginia. In 1941, the United States entered World War II; early the following year, the Germans torpedoed two merchant ships off the Assatea ...
. All eleven occupants of the aircraft died. On October 23, 1995, the maiden flight of a Conestoga 1620 rocket failed 46 seconds after liftoff, resulting in disintegration. EER Space Systems, Conestoga's manufacturer, concluded that low frequency noise from an unknown source upset the guidance system on the rocket causing it to order course corrections when none were needed. The rocket went off course when its first stage steering mechanism ran out of hydraulic fluid and became inoperable. After this failure, the Conestoga program was terminated, and EER abandoned the launch business. At the time of the launch, the Conestoga was the largest rocket ever launched from Wallops Island, and it was the first orbital mission attempted from the facility since 1985. The company's
launch pad A launch pad is an above-ground facility from which a rocket-powered missile or space vehicle is vertically launched. The term ''launch pad'' can be used to describe just the central launch platform ( mobile launcher platform), or the entir ...
at Wallops Island were the first commercially built facilities in the US. 14 scientific experiments, some of which were planned to return from orbit, were destroyed. All debris landed in the Atlantic Ocean. There were no injuries. On October 27, 1998 a
Learjet 45 The Learjet 45 (LJ45) aircraft is a mid-size business jet aircraft produced by the Learjet Division of Bombardier Aerospace. The Model 45 was the first all-new design since the original Learjet, and significantly altered the Learjet line. Throug ...
was destroyed at Wallops after a loss of control during a water ingestion test flight. Only minor injuries to a copilot and flight engineer were reported. There were no ground injuries. The airplane was being used to test a new nose wheel tire. For the test, the airplane was passed through a "pool" or "trough" of water on the runway at different speeds. The pilot failed to obtain/maintain alignment with the water pool and lost control. The plane departed the left side of the runway, and struck a pickup truck parked adjacent to the runway. On August 22, 2008, an
ALV X-1 ALV X-1 was the first and only flight of the ATK Launch Vehicle (ALV) sounding rocket developed by Alliant Techsystems. The launch occurred from LP-0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. This missi ...
sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are used to ...
was intentionally destroyed 20 seconds into flight after veering too far off course. On October 28, 2014, a failure occurred in an
Antares Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. It has the Bayer designation α Scorpii, which is Latinised to Alpha Scorpii. Often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion", Antares is flanked by σ Scorpii and τ S ...
rocket, carrying
Cygnus CRS Orb-3 Orbital-3, also known as Orb-3, was an attempted flight of Cygnus, an automated cargo spacecraft developed by United States-based company Orbital Sciences, on 28 October 2014. The mission was intended to launch at 22:22:38 UTC that evening. T ...
, shortly after launch and destroyed both the rocket and the payload at the adjacent
Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) is a commercial space launch facility located at the southern tip of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and south of Chincoteague, Virgi ...
on Launch Pad 0A.


Alliances

The NASA Wallops Flight Facility has alliances with a number of organizations important to its mission and future growth. Some examples include: * Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS)
U.S. Navy Surface Combat Systems Center (SCSC)Navy Test and Training RangesU.S. Space Force Space Launch Delta 45, Eastern Range
*
U.S. Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)Marine Science Consortium (MSC)White Sands Missile Range (WSMR)
It has also worked with the
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
in experiments involving ionized clouds for communications interception during the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...


Image gallery

File:04-WFF History.png, Early research rockets at Wallops Island File:05-WFF Mercury Apollo Tests.png, Wallops flight tests of Mercury capsule escape tower and Apollo heat shield aboard a Scout File:10-WFF Mobile Range Systems.png, Mobile Range Systems File:11-WFF Launch Pads.png, Launch Pads 0-A and 0-B File:12-WFF Mobile Telemetry System.png, Mobile Telemetry System File:13-WFF Optical Camera.png, Optical Tracking Systems File:14-WFF Range Control Center.jpg, Range Control Center File:Ny-Alesund (js) 5.jpg, Mobile system at the SvalRak launch site at Ny-Ålesund, Norway (2003)


See also

*
List of space companies and facilities in Virginia The following are space-related agencies, companies, and facilities in Virginia. Northern Virginia Government agencies *National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency *National Reconnaissance Office *National Security Space Office Government contractor ...


References


Further reading

*
Wallops Station and the Creation of an American Space Program
', by Harold D. Wallace (NASA History Series) (Paperback).

*''Wallops Island (Images of America: Virginia)'', by Nan Devincent Hayes and Bowen Bennett (Paperback).


External links



(official site)

(movie about NASA WFF, handbooks, maps)


NASA Visitor Center
(official website)

* * * * **
NOTAM A Notice to Airmen/Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM), is a notice filed with an aviation authority to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight. NOTAMs are unclassified notices or ...
s fo
KWAL
{{authority control Aerospace museums in Virginia Aerospace research institutes Aviation research institutes Buildings and structures in Accomack County, Virginia Goddard Space Flight Center Landmarks in Virginia Museums in Accomack County, Virginia NASA visitor centers Rocket launch sites in the United States Science museums in Virginia Space technology research institutes Spaceports in the United States 1945 establishments in Virginia