AIRFARE TO CHARLOTTE

Visitor Centers In The United States, including: Wallops Flight Facility, Alpine Visitor Center, Baltimore Visitors Center, Kennedy Space Center ... And Botanical Garden, Florida Welcome Center

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NASA Wallops Island, VA. This evening was the first of a 5 day widow for a nighttime launch of a Minotaur I Rocket. I had a front row seat about 1.5 miles from the launch pad, unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and the mission was scrubbed for the evening. I was hoping to capture some images as the candle was lit for the 12 minute flight to orbit. This brought back some memories as I used to recover nosecones from launches at this facility many decades ago. On one recovery mission I found the second stage of the rocket, NASA officials were thrilled when I informed them that the intact stage with it's stabilizer fins was aboard the recovery ship.

Payload information for this mission:
TacSat-3 satellite features three revolutionary trials: the Raytheon Company-built Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer hyperspectral imager, the Office of Naval Research's Satellite Communications Package, and the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Avionics Experiment. This trio of payloads will offer real-time imagery (within 10 minutes of collection), sea-based information transmitted from ocean buoys and plug-and-play avionics to assist the warfighter in keeping one step ahead of the adversary.

The PharmaSat experiment, developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center and will measure the influence of microgravity upon yeast resistance to an antifungal agent. PharmaSat focuses on questions key to countermeasure development for long-term space travel and habitation.

Three cubesats will be launched as secondary payloads on the TacSat-3 mission. The satellites, which contain their own power and data systems, are four-inch cubes that weigh 2.2 pounds each. The cubesats are being provided by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif. and the Hawk Institute for Space Sciences, Pocomoke City, Md. The three satellites are placed in a Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD), the standard deployment system for cubesats. The P-POD was developed by the Aerospace Engineering Department at Cal Poly. During the rocket’s ascent, each cubesat will be deployed separately from the P-POD into space.

Wallops Flight Facility from the Visitor Center observation deck. The deck is open for viewing Wallops launches.