WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. - The launch of the NASA Terrier Improved Orion suborbital sounding rocket carrying experiments from students around the U.S. launched on Friday.
The launch attempt on Thursday was postponed due to expected rough seas that would prevent payload recover.
On Friday morning they said some concerns for the rescheduled launch were low cloud cover and variable wind conditions and after a few delays the rocket launched around 8:32 a.m.
During a virtual learning experience, more than 70 experiments were built by university students across the United States and were ready to take flight on NASA suborbital flight vehicles.
The rocket launch was seen from the eastern shore of Virginia and Maryland and southern Delaware.
The 36-foot long two-stage rocket is carrying 32 experiments (measuring acceleration, humidity, pressure, temperature and radiation counts) from the RockOn! Program, 8experiments in the RockSat-C program and more than 60small cubes with experiments developed by middle school and high school students as part of the Cubes in Space program, a partnership between idoodlelearning inc., Wallops and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.
The sounding rocket will fly the student experiments to nearly 73 miles altitude. The experiments will land via parachute in the Atlantic Ocean where they will be recovered by boat.
