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Sounding rocket launches from Wallops

Posted at 7:52 AM, Oct 06, 2015
and last updated 2015-10-07 20:28:52-04

Wallops Island, Va. – A sounding rocket launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Wednesday night.

The launch was originally scheduled for Tuesday night but was rescheduled due to weather.

NASA was testing the modified Black Brant sounding rocket motor, launch vehicle and spacecraft systems and sub-payload injection technologies during the mission.

The flight’s primary objective is to characterize the reformulated Black Brant motor performance in a two-stage configuration.

“The flight also provides an opportunity to test new technologies being developed for space missions and science conducted using sounding rockets,” said Cathy Hesh, technology manager in the Sounding Rocket Program Office at Wallops.

During the flight of the two-stage Black Brant IX sounding rocket, NASA was to test a section of the payload fabricated using near net shape (NNS) technology from the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and three different materials through a Cubesat experiment developed by Orbital ATK of Magna, Utah.

Read more about the mission from NASA

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