![]() ![]() NASA nearly shut the place down in the mid-1990s, but today Wallops is home to a flurry of launch activity. It was founded in 1945, well before NASA even existed, and is the oldest continuous rocket launch range in the United States. ![]() ![]() Wallops is larger and much better established than the newbie spaceports rising in places like New Mexico, Michigan, and Indiana. The spaceport at Wallops Island, Va., is emerging as a hub of the launch industry. "We're having four launches in four months," he says. Members of his staff weave through the crowd distributing information sheets and stickers. As the executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, which owns the launchpad that the rocket sits on, he is enjoying a banner year-and enjoying the moment. As he begins speaking, the dozens of guests are distracted by the gleaming launch vehicle and the sight of Orbital Sciences engineers in hard hats waving from the work levels of the 127-foot-high gantry. The next day-today-the structure will ease away from the pad to enable the launch of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE). September 2013: As Dale Nash takes his position to speak to a gaggle of space press, corporate VIPs, and social media guests, he has a dramatic backdrop: About 50 feet behind him stands a stark white 80-foot rocket loaded with a lunar orbiter and tucked inside a rectangular building but visible through massive, open doors. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play Now it has a new tenant in the form of Rocket Lab, which is looking to be able to launch it's Proton rocket from not only New Zealand but also the U.S.A., allowing the company to launch more frequently. NASA swooped in to bring Wallops back to life, and the spaceport was soon up and running again. In 2014, an uncrewed Orbital Antares rocket headed to resupply the International Space Station blew up and caused millions of dollars of damage to Wallops. As we wrote in this piece back in 2013, the place had a long history in launch as the oldest continuous rocket launch range in the United States, but nearly shuttered in the 1990s. It's been a down-and-then-up last five years for Wallops Island. The company cited the relatively quiet nature of Wallops as an appealing fact, whereas SpaceX and others are busy upping their launch schedules at some of those other sites. Wallops won out over finalists Vandenberg Air Force Base (California), the Pacific Spaceport Complex (Alaska), and Cape Canaveral (Florida). "HASTE provides reliable, high-cadence flight test opportunities needed to advance hypersonic system technology development, with the inaugural launch scheduled to take place in the first half of 2023 for a confidential customer," Rocket Lab representatives said in the statement.October 17, 2018: Rocket Lab, the New Zealand-based launch startup, just announced Wallops Island, Virginia as its choice for a site to launch rockets from the U.S. The suborbital rocket is scheduled to make its debut right about now, on a mission whose details are hard to come by, according to that statement. The suborbital rocket also features a modified version of Electron's "kick stage" specialized for the deployment of hypersonic payloads, Rocket Lab said in an April 17 statement that announced HASTE's existence. HASTE can haul up to 1,540 pounds (700 kilograms) of payload aloft, whereas Electron can deliver a maximum of 660 pounds (300 kg) to low Earth orbit. That launcher is called HASTE, short for "Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron." As that name suggests, HASTE is derived from the workhorse Electron and is designed to help test technologies for hypersonic craft - highly maneuverable vehicles capable of flying at least five times the speed of sound. ![]()
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