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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility. A View of Wallops Bill Wrobel Director, Wallops Flight Facility October 3, 2012. Wallops Flight Facility Snapshot . Facility: >6000 acres on VA’s Eastern Shore Established in 1945 Assets: >$1.2B
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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility A View of Wallops Bill Wrobel Director, Wallops Flight Facility October 3, 2012
Wallops Flight Facility Snapshot • Facility: • >6000 acres on VA’s Eastern Shore • Established in 1945 • Assets: >$1.2B • Mission:Provide capabilities & services to enable science, technology, and education from space • Suborbital & small orbital “research carriers” • Mission operations (Research Range, orbital tracking) • Technology development • Earth science research • Educational flight projects • Economic Impact: • NASA Budget: ~$218M (FY12) • NASA Workforce: 270 Civil Servants, ~800 contractors • Tenant Workforce: ~600 personnel • National Impact: ~$400M annually, >3100 jobs
Sounding Rocket Program • 20 missions using 8 different vehicle configurations conducted from 4 launch sites during FY12 • 25 missions scheduled for FY13
Recent Sounding Rocket Mission Highlights • ATREX – Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment • 5 rockets launched on 80 second intervals • Study of upper atmosphere jet stream • IRVE 3 – Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment • Technology demonstration of deployed inflatable decelerator for atmospheric entry
Balloon Program • 9 successful missions conducted from 3 launch sites during FY12 • Includes test flight of SF-490 balloon film • Includes test flight of Wallops Arc Second Pointer
New Wallops Aircraft • C-23 Sherpa – supporting airborne science • UH-1H Helicopter – providing Launch Range surveillance & clearance • 3-year loan from LaRC • T-34 Mentor – providing chase plane support for Global Hawks • C-130 Hercules (coming soon) – To provide logistics & possibly science missions
Hurricane & Severe Storm Sentinel (HS-3) • Global Hawk UAS flown from WFF during September to conduct hurricane studies • 1st of 3-year program • Wallops Global Hawk Operations Center under construction at WFF for future campaigns
ER-2 Operations At Wallops DFRC’s ER-2 at WFF in September to support Minimum Anticipated Biological Effect Level (MABEL) Included flights over eastern & mid-western U.S. Instruments included GSFC’s CATS & CPL
ISS CREAM CREAM Instrument Structure CREAM Interface Location on JEM EF (EFU2) JEM EF • WFF managing an SMD-sponsored ISS experiment • U of MD’s Cosmic Ray Energetics & Mass (CREAM) • Will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 • Payload readiness date: 9/2014
Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) • WFF supporting an OCT-sponsored program to demonstrate planetary reentry using inflatable structures • Test article dropped from balloon, and accelerated using rocket • 4 flights from Hawaii in 2014-5
Highlights of Wallops Education in 2012 RockOn! HASP University , Community College and High School Internships Wallops Balloon Experience for Education (WBEE) Take a Child to Work SEEC HS3 Workshop FIRST Robotics Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students (WRATS) 9/19/12
Major Research Range Activities • Operationally Responsive Space-3 (ORS-3) • Minotaur I launch for Operationally Responsive Space Office • Launch date in between July-October 2013 • Lunar Atmosphere & Dust Experiment Explorer (LADEE) • Lunar orbiting spacecraft launched on Minotaur V in Aug. 2013 • Instruments managed by GSFC
Antares • Preparations continue for initial flights of Antares from WFF to resupply cargo to the ISS • Orbital Sciences began vehicle development at WFF in Spring 2011 • Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) turned over the new launch complex to Orbital last week • Schedule • Fueling testing planned during October • Hot Fire Test expected in November • 1st launch possible before end of December
Pad 0A Redevelopment After Before
Antares Processing in the Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) 16
Antares Rollout and Transporter ErectorLauncher Operations 17