NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocket was launched at 9:15 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 26, 2021, from the Wallops Flight Facility.
The two-stage vehicle was carrying the Vlf trans-Ionospheric Propagation Experiment Rocket, or VIPER, designed to study radio waves that escape through the Earth’s ionosphere impacting the environment surrounding GPS and geosynchronous satellites, such as those for weather monitoring and communications.
The next launch currently scheduled from Wallops is a Northrop Grumman Minotaur I rocket for the United States Space Force (USSF) carrying a national security payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The USSF Space and Missile Systems Center’s Launch Enterprise is providing the launch services for this mission, named NROL-111.
The rocket will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad 0B at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island.
The next NASA sounding rocket launch from Wallops will be a Terrier-Improved Orion the morning of June 24 carrying the RockOn educational payload.
Header Image Credit: NASA Wallops/Allison Stancil
Keith Koehler
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia