NASA and the government of Bermuda signed an agreement March 7 to establish a temporary mobile tracking station on the British overseas territory’s Cooper’s Island to support launches from the U.S. space agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, including upcoming launches of Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Taurus 2 rocket carrying cargo-laded Cygnus tugs to the international space station.
“This tracking station will help facilitate NASA’s partnership with commercial companies and support operations aboard the International Space Station,” NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said in a statement.
The mobile tracking station will be provided and operated by Wallops under NASA’s Research Range Services Program.
The station can provide telemetry, meteorological, optical and command-and-control services.
Bermuda hosted a radar tracking station from the Mercury Project in the early 1960s through most of the space shuttle program.
