Community Corner
[UPDATED] Look Up Today And You Might See A Rocket Ship
Antares's first test flight, originally scheduled for April 17, is now a go for tonight at 6:10 p.m. and there's a good chance the rocket will be visible from East Lyme, Old Lyme, and Lyme.
If you happen to see a bright light streaking across the sky tonight, don't be alarmed. It's not a meteor or a missile, it's a rocket ship!
NASA and the commercial spaceflight company Orbital Sciences Corp. are launching the company's new Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern shore of Virginia.
Virginia-based Orbital Sciences has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to make eight unmanned supply runs to the International Space Station with its Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo ferry. This will be Antares first test flight.
Liftoff was originally scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday but the flight was delayed by technical problems. The launch has been rescheduled for 6:10 p.m. today. Although we're going to have partly cloudy skies, there's a good chance we'll be able to see it.
"It's going to be the biggest, brightest and loudest thing ever launched from Wallops," Orbital executive vice president Frank Culbertson, a former NASA astronaut, told reporters. "It's going to be visible up and down the East Coast." [How to see the Antares rocket launch]
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