Rocket launches from Wallops Island with student-inspired satellites from Richmond-area schools [View all]

[TexasTowelie]

WALLOPS ISLAND — A spacecraft carrying 40 mice, two flying robots and the dreams of hundreds of science students is flying to its scheduled rendezvous with the International Space Station after a flawless launch from a state-owned regional spaceport here on Wednesday afternoon.

The Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft separated from the Antares rocket nine minutes after the 4:46 p.m. launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, based at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on this barrier island along Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The spacecraft, named after U.S. astronaut Roger Chaffee, is scheduled to dock with the space station orbiting Earth early Friday.

Before approaching the space station, Cygnus will deploy 63 miniature satellites, called ThinSats, that students in Virginia and other states helped to design for an inaugural experiment for bringing huge amounts of data from the Earth’s outer atmosphere into classrooms across the state and country.

Hundreds of students, their teachers and families gathered on Wallops Island to witness the launch, representing the 11th and final mission to resupply the space station under the first of two contracts between NASA and Northrop Grumman; all but one of the missions launched from Wallops. The first mission of a second contract is scheduled for this fall.

Read more: https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/rocket-launches-from-wallops-island-with-student-inspired-satellites-from/article_670dc2a2-f973-5b05-a19e-6d5dd1a7b197.html