Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport

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In the foreground the MARS starting positions 0B (left) and 0A, in the back the WFF

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport ( MARS ) is a commercial spaceport in the United States . It is located on the island of Wallops Island on the Atlantic coast, directly adjacent to the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) of NASA , whose infrastructure is partly used. The operators of MARS are the US states of Virginia and - to a lesser extent - Maryland .

history

In the 1980s, the US space market was liberalized . Among other things, unused facilities have been gradually released for use by third parties by NASA and the US Air Force . Both organizations are also making increasing use of commercial space services. The Wallops Flight Facility operated by NASA had previously only been used for atmospheric and suborbital rocket launches. Against this background, Virginia took the initiative and set up the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA or Virginia Space for short ) in 1995 . Its mission is to market Wallops Island as a location for orbital rocket launches. The VCSFA initiated the Virginia Space Flight Center project (" Virginia Space Flight Center ") to build a commercially oriented spaceport.

In 1997 the VCSFA signed an agreement with the WFF operator NASA; In the same year it received approval from the FAA to operate a rocket launch site. By the end of 1998, in addition to the previous WFF launch pad  0, the new launch site 0B ( pad 0B ) was built for the Virginia Space Flight Center , which was expanded again in 2003. The WFF ramp 0 - now called 0A - was also available for the new spaceport.

Pad 0B with Minotaur V before the start of the lunar probe Ladee

In July 2003, Governors Robert Ehrlich of Maryland and Mark Warner of Virginia signed an agreement to jointly operate the spaceport. This was given the new name Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in 2004 .

Video of the Antares launch accident on October 28, 2014

On December 16, 2006, the first satellite launch from Pad 0B took place with a Minotaur rocket . In 2013, the first of the new Antares rocket finally launched from the extensively renovated Pad 0A ; since then it has been bringing supplies from MARS to the ISS on a regular basis . Also in 2013, a space probe was launched from Pad 0B for the first time , the lunar orbiter Ladee . A legal dispute with the Antares operator Orbital Sciences due to time and cost overruns during the renovation of Pad 0A by Virginia Space was settled in early 2014. In the same year, the launch site was damaged when the engine of an Antares failed seconds after take-off. The missile fell back next to the launch pad and exploded - fortunately in a place where it did only limited damage. The subsequent repair of the pad 0A cost about 10 million US dollars .

In 2019, Rocket Lab set up a third launch site right next to Pad 0A, the Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2 (LC-2). From 2020 [obsolete] the small rocket Electron will start from there .

operator

The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (about: "Virginia Commercial Space Agency") is a space agency in the form of a corporation under public law of the US state Virginia . It was established by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority Act in 1995 and, according to the wording of the law, has the task of

"To promote industrial and economic development and scientific and technological research and development by developing and promoting the commercial and government aviation industries."

The organization is based in Norfolk , Virginia. It is led by a board of directors of nine ; two members of this body are provided by Maryland. Chairman of the board since 2012 has been the former head of the Pacific Spaceport Complex - Alaska and former space shuttle operations manager Dale Nash.

Starting places

Status: July 16, 2020

Surname rocket use Starts Remarks location
Pad 0A Antares since 2013 0012 37 ° 50 ′ 2 "  N , 75 ° 29 ′ 16"  W.
Pad 0B Minotaur since 2006 0007th 37 ° 49 ′ 52 ″  N , 75 ° 29 ′ 29 ″  W.
ALV X-1 2008 0001 abandoned sounding rocket project
LC-2 Electron from 2020 0000 37 ° 49 ′ 59 ″  N , 75 ° 29 ′ 17 ″  W.

f1Georeferencing Map with all coordinates: OSM

Start list

Orbital launches from MARS as of July 16, 2020

Performed starts

 success   Partial success   Failure 
No. Date, time ( UTC ) ramp rocket payload purpose Orbit 1
2000s
01 Dec 16, 2006 12:00 Pad 0B Minotaur I TacSat-2
GeneSat-1 		Technology
testing Technology testing 		LEO
02 Apr 24, 2007 06:48 Pad 0B Minotaur I NFire Technology testing LEO
03 May 19, 2009 23:55 Pad 0B Minotaur I TacSat-3 enlightenment LEO
2010s
04th June 30, 2011 03:09 Pad 0B Minotaur I ORS 1 enlightenment LEO
05 Apr 21, 2013 21:00 Pad 0A Antares -110 Mass simulator Test flight LEO
06th 0Sep 7 2013 03:27 Pad 0B Minotaur V Ladee Lunar probe HEO
07th Sep 18 2013 14:58 Pad 0A Antares-110 Cygnus Orb -D1 ISS supply LEO
08th Nov 20, 2013 01:15 Pad 0B Minotaur I ORS 3
STPSat 3 		Enlightenment
technology testing 		LEO
09 0Jan. 9, 2014 18:07 Pad 0A Antares-120 Cygnus Orb-1 ISS supply LEO
10 July 13, 2014 16:52 Pad 0A Antares-120 Cygnus Orb-2 ISS supply LEO
11 Oct 28, 2014 22:22 Pad 0A Antares-130 Cygnus Orb-3 ISS supply LEO
12 Oct 17, 2016 23:45 Pad 0A Antares-230 Cygnus OA -5 ISS supply LEO
13 Nov 12, 2017 12:19 Pad 0A Antares-230 Cygnus OA-8 ISS supply LEO
14th May 21, 2018 08:44 Pad 0A Antares-230 Cygnus OA-9 ISS supply LEO
15th Nov 17, 2018 09:01 Pad 0A Antares-230 Cygnus NG -10 ISS supply LEO
16 April 17, 2019 20:46 Pad 0A Antares-230 Cygnus NG-11 ISS supply LEO
17th 0Nov 2, 2019 13:59 Pad 0A Antares-230 + Cygnus NG-12 ISS supply LEO
2020s
18th Feb 15, 2020 20:21 Pad 0A Antares-230 + Cygnus NG-13 ISS supply LEO
19th 15th July 2020 13:46 Pad 0B Minotaur IV NROL-129 Military satellites ?

Planned launches

No. Date, time ( UTC ) ramp rocket payload purpose Orbit 1
Q3 2020 00:00 LC-2 Electron monolith Technology testing LEO
0Sep 7 2020 00:00 Pad 0A Antares-230 + Cygnus NG-14 ISS supply LEO
Early 2021 00:00 LC-2 Electron Capstone Lunar orbiter LTO
 Feb 2021 Pad 0A Antares-230 + Cygnus NG-15 ISS supply LEO
2nd quarter 2021 00:00 Pad 0B Minotaur I NROL-111 enlightenment LEO
End of 2021 00:00 Pad 0B Minotaur IV NROL-174 enlightenment LEO

Sources, unless otherwise stated: Spaceflight Now, NASA

__

1Orbit in which the payload is launched from the rocket upper stage; not necessarily the target orbit.

Canceled starts

It was announced that three Vector-R type small rockets will be launched from MARS by the end of 2019 . However, the manufacturer Vector Launch ran out of money in the meantime.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Petroleum Marketing Annual (1992) . DIANE Publishing, 1994, ISBN 978-0-7881-0501-2 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ Wallops Island in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
  3. ↑ a b c d Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Implementation Plan. (PDF; 0.5 MB) Joint Maryland and Virginia Working Group on Regional Spaceport Implementation, April 15, 2004, archived from the original on February 21, 2006 ; accessed on September 9, 2019 .
  4. ^ Virgina Space News. Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, archived from the original on February 13, 2006 ; accessed on September 9, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b Profiles | Dale Nash, executive director, Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority . Spacenews, March 3, 2014.
  6. ↑ Jeremy Cox: One year later, cause of Antares rocket blast unclear. In: USA Today . October 28, 2015, accessed September 10, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Rocket Lab Readies Launch Complex 2 for Electron Launches From US Soil . Rocket Lab, September 10, 2019.
  8. ↑ Rocket Lab Opens US Launch Site for Small Satellite Missions . Space.com, December 12, 2019.
  9. ^ Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority Act , 1995.
  10. ^ Alaska Spaceport Hopes to Snag More Rocket Launches . Space.com, December 2, 2010.
  11. ↑ VSDFA / Mars News , accessed September 9, 2019.
  12. ↑ Stephen Clark: Rocket Lab flies again from New Zealand as work progresses at Virginia launch pad. June 25, 2019, accessed on September 9, 2019 (With photo of the construction site.).
  13. ^ Mission and Trajectory Design - LADEE. In: Spaceflight 101. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018 ; accessed on September 9, 2019 .
  14. ^ Rocket Lab to debut Virginia launch pad with US Air Force mission next year . Spaceflight Now, December 12, 2019.
  15. ^ NASA Awards Contract to Launch CubeSat to Moon from Virginia . NASA, February 14, 2020.
  16. ↑ a b Stephen Clark: Minotaur rocket successfully deploys four NRO satellites in orbit. Spaceflight Now, July 15, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 .
  17. ^ Launch Schedule. Spaceflight Now, accessed July 16, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Microgravity Research Flights . Glenn Research Center, accessed May 19, 2020.
  19. ↑ Upcoming ELaNa CubeSat Launches . NASA, accessed May 19, 2020.
  20. ^ Vector and Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority Announce Three Upcoming Orbital Launches from Wallops Island . Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, 4th quarter 2017 (see archive ).
  21. ^ Vector replaces CEO, suspends operations amid financial problems . Spacenews, 9./10. August 2019.

Coordinates: 37 ° 50 ′ 0 ″  N , 75 ° 29 ′ 20 ″  W.