NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Site of Satellite Launch May 5

NASA’S Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia will be the site of the launch of an Air Force Minotaur I rocket carrying the Air Force Research Laboratory’s TacSat-3 satellite and two secondary payloads between 8 and 11 p.m. EDT, May 5.

The TacSat-3 launch will be the third Minotaur vehicle launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s launch pad 0B on the southern end of Wallops Island. The launch may be seen throughout the mid-Atlantic area.

The two secondary payloads are NASA’s PharmaSat microsatellite, developed at the Ames Research Center in California, and NASA’s CubeSat Technology Demonstration experiments, which includes three four-inch cubed satellites, developed by universities and industry.

Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center’s Space Development and Test Wing at Kirtland AFB, N.M., has overall management of the mission.

The back-up launch days for this mission are May 6 through 9.

Information about the TacSat-3/Minotaur 1 mission is available on the Internet at: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/events/index.html

The status of the mission, including during the countdown, can be found at:
Telephone: 757-824-2050

Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASA_Wallops

Web Cast: http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/webcast/

Radio: 760 AM (in the Wallops area)