Rockets Next Door: NASA's Wallops Flight Facility

If the sky over Chincoteague suddenly lights up with a rising pillar of fire, do not panic. That is your neighbor. Just a few miles west, on Wallops Island, sits one of the oldest rocket launch ranges on the planet, the NASA Wallops Flight Facility.

It opened in nineteen forty five, back when NASA did not yet exist and the agency in charge was called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The very first rocket lifted off from here in June of that year. In the decades since, Wallops has launched more than sixteen thousand rockets and high altitude balloons, mostly for scientific research.

In nineteen sixty one it sent up an early American satellite. The site got a major new mission with the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a commercial launch complex on the island. From here, Northrop Grumman launches its Antares rockets carrying Cygnus supply ships, hauling food, equipment, and experiments up to the astronauts on the International Space Station.

Not everything goes to plan. In October of twenty fourteen, an Antares rocket exploded seconds after liftoff, a spectacular fireball seen for miles. But on a good night, from the beaches and marshes of Chincoteague, you can watch a rocket climb toward orbit.

There is a free visitor center where you can plan a trip around a launch.