Transcript A View of Wallops - Bill Wrobel - Goddard Contractors Association

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s
Goddard Space
Flight Center
Wallops Flight Facility
A View of Wallops
Bill Wrobel
Director, Wallops Flight
Facility
October 3, 2012
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Wallops Flight Facility Snapshot
•
Facility:
• >6000 acres on VA’s Eastern Shore
• Established in 1945
• Assets: >$1.2B
•
Mission: Provide capabilities & services to enable science,
technology, and education from space
• Suborbital & small orbital “research carriers”
• Mission operations (Research Range, orbital tracking)
• Technology development
• Earth science research
• Educational flight projects
•
Economic Impact:
• NASA Budget:
• NASA Workforce:
• Tenant Workforce:
• National Impact:
~$218M (FY12)
270 Civil Servants, ~800 contractors
~600 personnel
~$400M annually, >3100 jobs
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Wallops Mission
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Sounding Rocket Program
• 20 missions using 8 different
vehicle configurations
conducted from 4 launch sites
during FY12
– 25 missions scheduled for FY13
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Recent Sounding Rocket Mission Highlights
• ATREX – Anomalous Transport
Rocket Experiment
– 5 rockets launched on 80 second
intervals
– Study of upper atmosphere jet
stream
• IRVE 3 – Inflatable Reentry
Vehicle Experiment
– Technology demonstration of
deployed inflatable decelerator
for atmospheric entry
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Balloon Program
• 9 successful missions
conducted from 3 launch
sites during FY12
– Includes test flight of SF-490
balloon film
– Includes test flight of
Wallops Arc Second Pointer
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New Wallops Aircraft
• C-23 Sherpa – supporting airborne
science
• UH-1H Helicopter – providing
Launch Range surveillance &
clearance
– 3-year loan from LaRC
• T-34 Mentor – providing chase
plane support for Global Hawks
• C-130 Hercules (coming soon) – To
provide logistics & possibly
science missions
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Hurricane & Severe Storm Sentinel (HS-3)
• Global Hawk UAS flown from
WFF during September to
conduct hurricane studies
– 1st of 3-year program
• Wallops Global Hawk Operations
Center under construction at
WFF for future campaigns
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ER-2 Operations At Wallops
• DFRC’s ER-2 at WFF in September
to support Minimum Anticipated
Biological Effect Level (MABEL)
• Included flights over eastern &
mid-western U.S.
• Instruments included GSFC’s CATS
& CPL
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ISS CREAM
• WFF managing an SMDsponsored ISS experiment
– U of MD’s Cosmic Ray
Energetics & Mass (CREAM)
CREAM Instrument
Structure
CREAM Interface
Location on JEM EF
(EFU2)
• Will launch on a SpaceX
Falcon 9
– Payload readiness date:
9/2014
JEM EF
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Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD)
• WFF supporting an OCTsponsored program to
demonstrate planetary reentry
using inflatable structures
• Test article dropped from
balloon, and accelerated using
rocket
– 4 flights from Hawaii in 2014-5
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Highlights of Wallops Education in 2012
Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers
and Students (WRATS)
RockOn!
HASP
University , Community College
and High School Internships
Take a Child to Work
SEEC
HS3 Workshop
FIRST Robotics
9/19/12
Wallops Balloon Experience for Education (WBEE)
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Major Research Range Activities
• Operationally Responsive Space-3
(ORS-3)
– Minotaur I launch for Operationally
Responsive Space Office
– Launch date in between JulyOctober 2013
• Lunar Atmosphere & Dust
Experiment Explorer (LADEE)
– Lunar orbiting spacecraft launched
on Minotaur V in Aug. 2013
– Instruments managed by GSFC
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Antares
• Preparations continue for initial
flights of Antares from WFF to
resupply cargo to the ISS
– Orbital Sciences began vehicle
development at WFF in Spring 2011
– Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS)
turned over the new launch complex to
Orbital last week
• Schedule
– Fueling testing planned during October
– Hot Fire Test expected in November
– 1st launch possible before end of
December
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Pad 0A Redevelopment
After
Before
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Antares Processing in the
Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF)
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Antares Rollout and Transporter Erector
Launcher Operations
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Cygnus Processing in H-100/Payload
Processing Facility
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Recent Beach Replenishment
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