Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport

An aerial view of the launch pads at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) is a commercial space launch facility located at the southern tip of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the Delmarva Peninsula south of Chincoteague, Virginia.

Background

In July 2003, Governors Robert Ehrlich of Maryland and Mark Warner of Virginia signed an agreement that directed the Secretary of Commerce and Trade of Virginia and the Secretary of Business and Economic Development of Maryland to form a working group to develop a concept and implementation plan for joint governance, operation and administration of the commercial spaceport at Wallops Island. The spaceport, then known as the Virginia Space Flight Center, had been developed, with a combination of federal, state and private sector funding, by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA).

Launch history

The first rocket to be launched from MARS was an Orbital Sciences Minotaur, at 12:00 GMT on 16 December 2006, with two spacecraft, TacSat-2 for the US Air Force, and GeneSat-1 for NASA.^{[citation needed]}

Launch	Date (UTC)	Vehicle	Payload	Launch pad	Result	Remarks
1	December 16, 2006 12:00	Minotaur I	TacSat-2 / GeneSat-1	Pad 0B	Success[citation needed]
2	April 24, 2007 06:48	Minotaur I	NFIRE	Pad 0B	Success
3	August 22, 2008 09:10	ATK ALV X-1	Hy-BoLT and SOAREX VI	Pad 0B	Failure	Went off-course, destroyed by range safety
4	May 19, 2009, 19:55	Minotaur I	TacSat-3	Pad 0B	Success[citation needed]
5	June 30, 2011 03:09	Minotaur I	USAF ORS-1 Satellite	Pad 0B	Success
Scheduled launches
	December 2011	Taurus II	COTS Demo Mission	Pad 0A		Updated: 2011-05-07
	2012	Taurus II	2 ISS re-supply missions	Pad 0A		Updated: 2011-05-07
	May 2013	Minotaur V	LADEE	Pad 0B		Updated: 2011-01-03
	2013	Taurus II	2 ISS re-supply missions	Pad 0A		Updated: 2011-01-03
	2014	Taurus II	2 ISS re-supply missions	Pad 0A		Updated: 2011-01-03
	2015	Taurus II	2 ISS re-supply missions	Pad 0A		Updated: 2011-01-03

Links

Coordinates: 37°50′00″N 75°29′00″W / 37.833378°N 75.483284°W / 37.833378; -75.483284

• Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Launch Pad 0
• Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport web site
• Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Implementation Plan, April 2004
• Wallops Flight Facility site
• Orbital Sciences Corporation
• 2010 in spaceflight
• 2011 in spaceflight
• 2012 in spaceflight