NASA Rocket Launch Lights up the Mid-Atlantic Coast

Credits: NASA/Terry Zaperach

The rocket, after being delayed multiple times over the last 30 days, flew to an altitude of about 118 miles.

Time-lapse video of the ampoule release creating artificial clouds, or vapor tracers, that allow scientists to track particle motions in space. The ampoule launch occurred June 29 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia.

Credits: NASA/Wallops Range Optical Systems Group

Wallops received nearly 2,000 reports and photos of the cloud sightings from areas as far north as New York, south to North Carolina, and inland throughout Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and points in-between. Submitted photos can be viewed on the Wallops Facebook Page.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility provides agile, low-cost flight and launch range services to meet government and commercial sector needs for accessing flight regimes worldwide from the Earth’s surface to the moon. Wallops’ flight assets ranging from research aircraft, unmanned aerial systems and high-altitude balloons to suborbital and orbital rockets provide a full-range of capability, while operational launch range and airfield capabilities meet ongoing and emerging needs in the science, aerospace, defense, and commercial industries.

Contacts and sources:
Jeremy Eggers