Activities at Wallops Flight Facility

49 th Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium March 30, 2011 Bill Wrobel Director, Wallops Flight Facility Activities at Wallops Flight Facility

Wallops 6000 Acre Campus Main Base Wallops Island

Wallops History
Founded by NACA in 1945
Over 16,000 rocket launches conducted over 65+ years
Wallops’ first satellite, Explorer 9, launched 50 years ago on February 16, 1961

The Wallops Role
Manage & implement
frequent,
quick-response,
low-cost,
risk-tolerant
missions supporting NASA science & technology research
Major mission elements
Suborbital & small orbital research carriers
Research Range operations
Carrier & operations technology development

Sounding Rockets
20+ missions flown annually
10 vehicle configurations
9 worldwide launch sites + mobile campaigns
Supporting
Heliophysics
Astrophysics
Planetary physics
Technology development
Education

Exoplanet Finding using Sounding Rockets
The Planet Imaging Concept Testbed Using Sounding Rocket (PICTURE) uses nulling interferometers.
PICTURE will flight qualify several key technologies
Extremely light-weight mirror
Visible nulling coronograph
Deformable mirror
0.5 milli arc-sec pointing
PICTURE is a collaboration between
Boston University
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Goddard Space Flight Center
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Scientific Balloons
~14 missions annually
Features
Balloon volumes up to 60M cubic ft.
Suspended loads up to 8000 lbs.
Float altitudes of up to 160K feet
Balloon Classes
Conventional: 2-36 hour duration
Long Duration: 40+ days
Super Pressure: Up to 100 days
Worldwide launch sites
Support to
Astrophysics
Technology development
Education

The Balloon Program Legacy
Over 4 decades, 30 spacecraft missions have been evolved from balloon missions
TRACER BOOMERANG TIGER / ANITA CREAM InFOCuS BLAST FIREBall AESOP Sunrise

New Balloon Technologies
Super Pressure Balloons
Will provide mission durations of 60-100 days
Recent successful 14MCF test flight from Antarctica, with 4000 lbs. payload
Wallops Arc Second Pointer
Providing accuracies of 0.75 arcseconds
Test flight scheduled for Fall 2011
Proposed in recent NASA Explorer Mission of Opportunity
Future plans include trajectory control

Super Pressure Balloon Test Flight (1/2011)

Airborne Science
Wallops P-3 currently in Greenland supporting Operation Ice Bridge
Airborne Topographic LIDAR (ATM) provides precision ice-thickness maps, repeated on an annual basis
More than 250 science flight hours planned

Unmanned Aerial Systems - Big & Small
Wallops will serve as base of operations for NASA’s Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS-3)
Global Hawk flights studying formation of severe storms
5-year program beginning in Summer 2012
Wallops UAS Technology Initiative
3-year program to demonstrate capabilities of small UAVs for Earth Science
Standardized instrument support interface architecture
Miniaturized instrument (e.g., ATM)
Demos using L-3 Viking 300 UAS

Small Satellites
Wallops developing proto-flight “6U” small sat design, based on Cubesat standard
6U spacecraft provides standardized architecture supporting multiple instrument concepts
~2/3 of volume available for instruments
Initial unit & deployer will complete qualification testing by end of FY11

Supersonic Inflatable Aeroshell Demonstrator (SIAD)
Office of Chief Technologist sponsoring program to demonstrate high-speed inflatable decelerator concept for planetary or Earth reentry
JPL-led project team
Flight tests proposed between 2012-2014
Wallops providing balloons, avionics, and operations support
High-speed parachute demos
High-altitude rocket accelerated reentry tests

Supersonic Inflatable Aeroshell Demonstrator (SIAD)

ORS-1
1 st operational spacecraft launch for DoD’s Operationally Responsive Space office
Provides quick-reaction satellites supporting urgent military needs
Electro-optical & infrared imaging spacecraft to be launched on a Minotaur 1
Launch Date: May 2011?

Lunar Atmosphere Dust Experiment Explorer (LADEE)
NASA Ames & Goddard built Lunar orbiting spacecraft. Instruments:
Neutral Mass Spectrometer (GSFC)
Ultra-Violet Spectrometer (ARC)
Dust Detector (LASP)
Lunar Laser Comm (Lincoln Labs)
Wallops providing end-to-end launch service support
USAF-provided Minotaur V
Launch site I&T
Launch range services from WFF’s Pad 0B
Highlights
1 st flight of Minotaur V
1 st NASA flight on USAF Minotaur vehicle
1 st planetary mission from WFF

Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Explorer (LADEE)

Taurus II
Taurus II expands Wallops capabilities to medium-class ELVs
Initial missions are 9 launches supporting NASA’s COTS & CRS programs for commercial resupply of the ISS
Future Science & non-NASA missions expected
>$100M in new launch infrastructure underway
Initial flight in late 2011

Taurus II & ISS Resupply

Horizontal Integration Facility

Pad 0A Medium-Class ELV Launch Complex

Activities at Wallops Flight Facility

by American Astronautical Society on Apr 01, 2011

Accessibility

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Statistics

Activities at Wallops Flight Facility Presentation Transcript