Wallops Tries To Grow But NASA Holds It Back
Spaceport awaiting federal funding to make repairs
“The delay is tied to carrying out the omnibus federal spending bill’s $20 million appropriation for NASA to ensure that the money goes to repair of the spaceport, which operates at the national space agency’s Wallops Island Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. “NASA is fully aware of the intent of the $20 million they didn’t expect to get, but they got,” said Kevin Hall, spokesman for Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., who worked with Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va.; Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.; and members of both states’ congressional delegations to secure the funding. Hall said his office is investigating the reason for the delay but is “trying to help the state navigate this process.”
At Wallops, a growing financial impact that resonates
“Government and business leaders in the region are looking for more growth in the future after a string of successes the past two years at NASA Wallops Flight Facility, and despite one major setback the explosion shortly after liftoff in October of a rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station on Orbital Sciences Corporation’s third commercial cargo mission under a NASA contract.”
HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 719
“Encouraging the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to conduct an environmental impact study related to landing commercial booster rockets and spacecraft at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.”
HJ 719 NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility; NASA to conduct an environmental impact study
One wonders why NASA is paying to fix the pad instead of Orbital. Nice deal they have there…
Why isn’t Orbital stepping up to the plate and paying for the damage they caused. It’s not the tax payers responsibility to pay for what Orbital is responsible for.
This is not the tax payer’s responsibility, Orbital needs to step up to the plate and accept financial responsibility for the damage they caused.
Read their contract.
I’m not sure what Orbital’s contract read, but in the spirit of commercial space, could commercial aviation be an analogy? If an aircraft accident damages a runway, who pays for the repairs? The airport or the aircraft’s operator?
I don’t think I understand why we need these duplicate facilities. Our geography requires two space launch facilities: one for polar (Vandenberg), and one for equatorial launches– what does Wallops bring to the party exactly?
Over time, we may be scrambling for launch sites. SpaceX for example is planning for near-term weekly launches, mid-term daily launches, and eventually multiple daily launches. They see the current relative rarity of launches as resulting from launches costing in the hundreds of million dollars each. When Falcon 9 goes resusable Spacex is aiming to drop the cost by a factor of 10 to about 6mill per launch. When FH and later BFR go reusable they are targeting an eventual hundred fold drop.
OK, fair point. But on the frequency of flights I wonder exactly what payloads are going– even at bargain-basement prices.
4,000 Google-SpaceX-??who_else?? commsats with a 20% replacement per year, other uber-constellations (at least 2 in the ITU spectrum reservations), increased commercial launches due to reusability price cuts (not just from SpaceX), Musk’s own end goals at Mars etc. Could get busy-busy.
More pads, allowing routine low priority launches to continue when KSC is full up or delayed with more important launches. Or allowing potentially delaying novel launches/vehicles/tests to take up space away from the key KSC pads, letting them take their time working out bugs, instead of rushing to launch before a higher-priority payload forces them off the pad.
I can see that. When viewed by a non-space professional, though, KSC appears to be awfully under-utilized– and exceedingly expensive.
Would it not be better to expand the number of pads, and/or spend some time thinking about using those pads in a more expeditious manner? Rather than seeing rockets sitting on the pad for (sometimes) weeks?
There’s a staging issue here that I’m not seeing (staging in the construction industry sense).
1st step to landing 1st stage is an enviro study. My flat spin, glide back has few issues. The sonic boom may be focused on the ocean. The only noise would be the swish as it glided by. Use green propellants for thrusters. The approach to Wallops runway is very good. Not much to hurt if the stage nose dives. Of course KSC is the same. If only it would work and somebody would do it. It sounds like ULA will announce in April, that they will do the engine recovery, using the system they studied several years ago. From a speech, https://www.youtube.com/wat…
last night. He did not mention glide back.
Heard a sonic boom the other day. I imagine that is what it would sound like if a 1st stage was coming in from Texas. MacDill AFB and St.Pete- Clearwater has over water approaches. A warning to all traffic that a first stage was gliding in by the tower would work. St. Pete has twin runways. So only have to shut down one. I have flown a Ercoupe into there and I can imagine looking for 1st stage traffic over Tampa Bay. Not much different than looking for F-4’s going into MacDill in the old days.
Did not see image upload under edit, so here it is.
Wallops is not the first NASA organization to fall afoul of the “operating plan” negotiations between the agency and Congress. The process regularly means that parts of NASA receive their supposedly authorized finding in dribs and drabs throughout a given fiscal year. Makes planning really difficult.