Launch Pad 0 (LP-0), also known as Launch Complex 0 (LC-0), or Launch Area 0 (LA-0), is a launch complex at 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 ...

(MARS) 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 ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

in the

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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. MARS is located adjacent to

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, succeedin ...

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately north-northeast of Norfolk. The facility is operated by the Godda ...

(WFF), which ran the launch complex until 2003. WFF continues to provide various support services to MARS launches under contract with the

Commonwealth of Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

. The launch complex consists of three individual

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, LP-0A, LP-0B, and Launch Complex-2 (LC-2).

History

Pad 0A

Antares Orbital ATK-8 Mission (NHQ201711100004)

LP-0A was first built for the failed Conestoga rocket program. The original launch tower was subsequently demolished in September 2008. A new pad facility was built from 2009-2011 for

Orbital Sciences Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...

''Taurus II'', now renamed

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 ...

. Pad modifications for Antares included the construction of a Horizontal Integration Facility for launcher/payload mating and a wheeled transporter/erector that will roll out and erect the rocket on its launch pad about 24 hours prior to launch. The first launch of Antares occurred on April 21, 2013. The pad was reinforced with pilings and features a liquid fueling facility, flame trench, and deluge system for cooling and sound suppression. The pad is capable of supporting a gross liftoff weight of and can launch payloads of up to into

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

. On October 28, 2014, an Orbital Systems Antares rocket, flying as mission

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. ...

, crashed 6 seconds after takeoff and appeared to have done significant damage to the launch pad itself. On October 29, 2014, teams of investigators began examining debris at the crash site. By May 2015, estimates had been revised down to around US$13 million. At that time, NASA had committed US$5 million, Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority committed US$3 million and

Orbital ATK Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) was a sector (business segment) of Northrop Grumman from 2018 through 2019. It was formed from Orbital ATK Inc. a company which resulted from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and parts of Alli ...

US$3 million. Repairs were underway and planned to be completed by September 2015, but repairs were only funded up to August with Virginia CSFA requesting that Orbital provide the remaining US$2 million. On September 30, 2015, the spaceport announced repairs on pad 0A had been completed. The launch pad resumed flight operations with the

Cygnus CRS OA-5 OA-5, previously known as Orbital-5, was the seventh planned flight of the Orbital Sciences' uncrewed resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its sixth flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NAS ...

mission on October 17, 2016. In March 2021,

Rocket Lab Rocket Lab is a public American aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider, with a New Zealand subsidiary. The company operates lightweight Electron orbital rockets, which provide dedicated launches for small satellites. Rocket Lab also ...

announced that they will launch their upcoming medium-lift launch vehicle

Neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the atomic nucleus, nuclei of atoms. Since protons and ...

from LP-0A, with the initial launch planned for as early as 2024.

Pad-0B

LP-0B became operational in 1999, and was subsequently upgraded in 2003 with the construction of a mobile service tower, which was completed in 2004. It is active, and is currently used by

Minotaur In Greek mythology, the Minotaur ( , ;. grc, ; in Latin as ''Minotaurus'' ) is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "p ...

rockets. The first launch from LP-0B was of a Minotaur I in December 2006, and was the first launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. On October 19, 2017,

Vector Space Systems Vector Launch, Inc. (formerly Vector Space Systems) is an American space technology company which aims to launch suborbital and orbital payloads. Vector Launch declared bankruptcy in December 2019 and re-emerged in October 2020. History The c ...

announced plans to conduct three launches from pad 0B with its in-development Vector-R small satellite launch vehicle over the subsequent two years, with an option for five additional launches.

Launch Complex-2 (Pad 0C)

In October 2018, Rocket Lab announced that it had selected Mid-Atlantic as its second launch site called Rocket Lab Launch Complex-2 (LC-2) or Launch Pad 0C. The new launch pad is near Pad 0A (and shares some systems with Pad 0A), with the first launch scheduled for December 2022. Rockets launched from LC-2 will be integrated at Rocket Lab's integration facility, located just a few miles away from the pad. They will be transported to the pad and integrated onto the strongback. In December 2019, construction was completed and Rocket Lab inaugurated Launch Complex 2 at Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. In April 2020, Rocket Lab performed a Wet Dress Rehearsal with an Electron rocket on the pad.

Launch statistics

''Chart excludes the only launch of Conestoga from pad 0A in 1995. Chart also excludes the suborbital launch of ALV X-1 on 22 August 2008 from pad 0B.''

References

{{Wallops Island Spaceports in the United States Buildings and structures in Accomack County, Virginia 1995 establishments in Virginia