Monday Morning Rocket Launch Could Surprise US East Coast Residents (Joe Rao)

Created by : Francis Goodwin View profile

By Joe Rao -- SPACE.com

Dec. 8, 2006 -- Should a rocket blast off on schedule early Monday morning from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia, a potentially spectacular sight might greet early risers en route to work and school.

It would be the first attempt at launching an orbital rocket from this coastal Virginia range -- located just south of Assateague Island -- in over eleven years. It would also be one of the most powerful rockets that has ever been launched from Wallops.

Should good weather conditions prevail, a 69-foot, 5-foot wide, 35-ton, four-stage Minotaur I rocket will liftoff at 7:00 a.m. EST. The chief goal of this flight is to place the 814-pound TacSat2 satellite with its 11 onboard experiments into a circular orbit 255 miles above the Earth. In addition, a 22-pound nanosatellite developed by NASA's Ames Research Center in California that goes by the name "GeneSat1" will also be carried into space by the Minotaur I.

A launch window from Dec. 11 to Dec. 20, from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. each day, has been established to take into account bad weather or equipment glitches (see "Final Points" below).

A 7 a.m. launch would occur just prior to sunrise along the entire Atlantic Coastline.