Launch Scrubbed; Pushed Due to Weather

The cloud in the upper left hand part of the image is due to a barium release. The purple-red part is the ionized component which has become elongated along the Earth’s magnetic field lines. The purple-blue cloud that surrounds the red ionized barium is a combination of the neutral barium and strontium. The blue and white trail in the lower portion of the image is from a TMA vapor trail that reveals the neutral wind trails as a function of altitude. Credits: NASA — The cloud in the upper left hand part of the image is due to a barium release. The purple-red part is the ionized component which has become elongated along the Earth’s magnetic field lines. The purple-blue cloud that surrounds the red ionized barium is a combination of the neutral barium and strontium. The blue and white trail in the lower portion of the image is from a TMA vapor trail that reveals the neutral wind trails as a function of altitude. These types of clouds may form once this launch occurs.
Credits: NASA

The June 13th planned launch of a sounding rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility has been scrubbed; because of forecast poor weather in the Mid Atlantic, the next attempt will be pushed to Thursday, June 15th.

The launch window for the Thursday attempt begins at 9:05pm and ends at 9:20pm. If the rocket fails to launch then, NASA will try again daily, weather permitting, through June 18.

What happens to the rocket after these scrubs? Not much according to NASA’s Keith Koehler. “It just stays on the pad. They bring it down each night and cover it with the shelter. It will stay on the pad unless it looks like we may have a delay of weeks or months,” said Koehler of NASA Wallops Office of Communications.