NASA Testing High-Altitude Suborbital Rocket ~ September 5

WALLOPS ISLAND, VA – NASA will conduct a test flight of a Talos-Terrier-Oriole suborbital sounding rocket between 7 and 10 a.m., September 5, from the agency’s launch range at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

This will be the first flight of this launch vehicle which is being developed, using motors that currently exist in the sounding rocket fleet, to support high altitude space science research.

The backup launch day is September 6.

Chuck Brodell, project manager with the Wallops sounding rocket programs office, said, “One of the main objectives of this mission is to develop alternative high altitude vehicle three and four stage configurations that will augment the current NASA stable of suborbital research vehicles. In addition we will test several new hardware developments as well as flight support systems.”

This will be the first flight of the Oriole motor as a third stage for the NASA Sounding Rocket Program and the first flight of the Terrier as a second stage.

The 3-stage, 65-foot tall vehicle is projected to lift its 1,664 pound payload to approximately 176 miles above the Earth. After a 10 minute flight, the payload is expected land in the Atlantic Ocean about 300 miles off the Wallops Island coast. The payload will not be recovered.

The launch may be visible to observers on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the three lower counties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and southern Delaware.

The NASA Visitor Center at the Wallops Flight Facility will open at 6 a.m. on launch day for public viewing.

The mission will be available live on Ustream beginning at 6 a.m. on launch day at: http://www.ustream.com/channel/nasa-wallops

Mission status on launch day also can be followed on Twitter and Facebook at: http://www.twitter.com/NASA_Wallops and http://www.facebook.com/NASAWFF

Mission status also is available on the Wallops launch status line at 757-824-2050.