Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center

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Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center
NASA Visitor Center at Wallops Flight Facility 002 crop.jpg
Established1982 (1982)
LocationBuilding J-17
Wallops Island, Virginia
Coordinates 37°56′19″N75°27′26″W / 37.9386°N 75.45736°W / 37.9386; -75.45736
TypeSpace museum
Website NASA Visitor Center

The Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center is located in Building J-17, Wallops Island, Virginia, United States along Route 175. It contains exhibits highlighting past missions conducted at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. [1] The visitor center also provides information about current activities at Wallops Flight Facility, such as the sounding rocket, balloon and aircraft program. The outside grounds has a rocket garden consisting of rockets and aircraft used for space and aeronautical research, including a full-scale four stage reentry vehicle used to study the Earth's atmosphere. In addition, the visitor center has educational programs on Earth and space science. It is also a viewing area for rocket launches. [2]

Wallops Island island in the United States of America

Wallops Island is a six-square-mile (16 km2) island in Accomack County, Virginia, part of the Virginia Barrier Islands that stretch along the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. It is just south of Chincoteague Island, a popular tourist destination.

Virginia State of the United States of America

Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States located between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" due to its status as the first English colonial possession established in mainland North America and "Mother of Presidents" because eight U.S. presidents were born there, more than any other state. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's estimated population as of 2018 is over 8.5 million.

Virginia State Route 175 highway in Virginia

State Route 175 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. Known as Chincoteague Road, the state highway runs 10.49 miles (16.88 km) from U.S. Route 13 at Nash Corner east to Main Street in Chincoteague. SR 175 passes through the northeastern corner of Accomack County, providing the primary access to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and both Chincoteague Island and the Virginia portion of Assateague Island. The route travels between the mainland and Chincoteague Island along the John B. Whealton Memorial Causeway.

Contents

History

The visitor center was established in 1982. It is named Robert L. Krieger Education Complex after the long term head of Wallops Flight Facility.

Exhibits

Some exhibits include:

Apollo 17 Final mission of the Apollo program

Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program and the last mission as of 2019 in which humans have travelled to and walked on the Moon. Launched at 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, with a crew made up of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, it was the last use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose; after Apollo 17, extra Apollo spacecraft were used in the Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs.

Science On a Sphere A spherical projection system created by NOAA which presents high-resolution video on a suspended globe

Science On a Sphere (SOS) is a spherical projection system created by NOAA. It presents high-resolution video on a suspended globe rather than a flat screen, with the aim of better representing global phenomena. Animated images of atmospheric storms, climate change, and ocean temperature can be shown on the sphere to explain these complex environmental processes. SOS systems are most frequently installed in science museums, universities, zoos, and research institutions, although new and novel uses for these systems in a variety of presentation spaces and contexts are starting to emerge.

The Nike-Cajun was a two-stage sounding rocket built by combining a Nike base stage with a Cajun upper stage. It was launched 714 times between 1956 and 1976 and was the most frequently used sounding rocket of the western world. The Nike Cajun had a launch weight of 698 kg (1538 lb), a payload of 23 kg (51 lb), a launch thrust of 246 kN (55,300 lbf) and a maximum altitude of 120 km (394,000 ft). It had a diameter of 42 cm and a length of 7.70 m. The maximum speed of the Nike-Cajun was 6,760 km/h (4,200 mph).

Little Joe (rocket)

Little Joe was an unmanned United States solid-fueled booster rocket used for eight launches from 1959–1960 from Wallops Island, Virginia to test the launch escape system and heat shield for Project Mercury capsules, as well as the name given to the test program using the booster. The first rocket designed solely for manned spacecraft qualifications, Little Joe was also one of the pioneer operational launch vehicles using the rocket cluster principle.

Apollo 9 3rd manned mission on the Apollo space programme

Apollo 9 was the third crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, the second to be sent into orbit by a Saturn V rocket, and the first flight of the command and service module (CSM) with the Lunar Module (LM). Flown in Low Earth Orbit, its major purposes were to qualify the LM for lunar orbit operations and to show that the CSM could separate and move well apart, before rendezvousing and docking again, as they would have to do on subsequent lunar landing missions.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lapole, Shirley (1 May 2015). "Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center: About Us". NASA. Retrieved 15 June 2017.
  2. ↑ Kaplan, Melanie D.G. The Washington Post , "Walloped by a rocket launch on Virginia’s Wallops Island", 23 January 2014. Retrieved on 25 January 2017.
  3. ↑ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website. "Science On a Sphere". Retrieved 25 January 2017.
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