hello and welcome to Wallops Flight Facility NASA's only owned and operated
launch range I'm Sarah Daugherty and I'm excited to introduce you to Wallops and
all the exciting missions that we support here on Virginia's Eastern Shore
come on let's get started this is the range control center otherwise known as
the RCC it's considered the heartbeat of all operations conducted here at Wallops
in these walls we coordinate and manage an effort by a multitude of scientists
engineers technicians project managers test directors and others to place
rockets where science can be collected today we insert satellites into
low-earth orbit launch a multitude of suborbital
sounding rockets fly unmanned and manned aircraft and even fly newly designed
vehicles we do this in support of many different partners such as the
Department of Defense commercial industry and higher learning
institutions we supported these missions in just the past few years however
Wallops has a rich history dating back to 1945 with more than 16,000 operations
at the end of World War two our country realized the importance of developing a
national rocketry program and the government officially opened the gates
to Wallops Island On June 27 1945 conducting its first launch that same
day through the years Wallops has grown to be an important national asset as it
served as a test location for the mercury program and began inserting
satellites into orbit in 1961 missions of national importance continue today as
Wallops serves as the launch site for International Space Station resupply
missions utilizing a launch vehicle known as Antares we also support
launches for DoD and the missile defense agency as well as being a test site for
unmanned and manned aerial systems Wallops has facilities for proven and
prototype vehicles which include fabrication and integration Wallops is
also home to NASA's sounding rocket program office sounding rockets our
suborbital vehicles designed to place instruments in the upper atmosphere or
lower levels of space to conduct a variety of studies although we tend to
make it look easy launching rockets can be a difficult business and if not done
properly can be very dangerous however the Wallops team combines the
efforts of safety surveillance data quality and a mission assurance team to
smooth out the process at Wallops range safety is responsible for protecting the
people and property from all the hazards associated with that particular
operation as the Range Safety Officer I lead the team that is covering both
flight and ground operations during the countdown as the RSO I monitor all of
our assets and I give the safety go/no-go call at any time I could stop a
countdown should the conditions warrant that includes things like ships or
airplanes moving inside some of our hazard evidence after liftoff the RSO
monitors the in-flight vehicle performance of the vehicle against
mission rules and flight safety criteria and for our larger rockets that
responsibility also includes making termination is how does that vehicle
performing and I pre-authorized to take a destruct action by sending functions
to that vehicle before I would ever hazard the public the primary function
of the surveillance room is to find all of the the targets of interest within a
prescribed hazard area that range safety themes desirable so that that means that
we're looking for boats in aircraft that may be in a particular location that
that could compromise the launch or compromise their safety so we use a
variety of assets to accomplish the overall surveillance and to give us a
good picture as to what we're countering up the prescribed hazard areas and we
use both marine assets boats of various types and we use air assets different
aircraft and they're all equipped with different sensors and data collecting
and communication systems that we use to effectively manage the targets that we
encounter within a prescribed hazard area the data quality room is designed
for three main functions to provide vehicle tracking data for all downrange
tracking sources to verify the quality of that data and then to make the data
available for all of the range users at Wallops Flight Facility we have a few
high-tech systems that are operators utilize which are the mission graphics
and the raid AK which stands for the range acquisitions computer these
systems take the real-time radar data as well as the downlink data and it
converges it into positional data which allows us to understand and know where
the vehicle is at all times we then take this data and push it over to the range
control center so everybody can see it and also we can have NASA arrange safe
to use it as well the days leading up to a mission are full of excitement here in
the data control room our data control operators are busy running a lot of
flight simulations to ensure all of the trajectories are working properly and
that we are receiving all the radar and telemetry data needed for the launch
during a launch our data quality operators take all of the information
that's coming in from our radar in telemetry sites they ensure it's
accurate and then they send the best sources over to NASA Range Safety as
well as the users and anybody else this rain she requests the information
for the launch smart is an acronym that stands for systems for mission awareness
in real-time the smart room is an area in the range control center that is used
by software engineers to demonstrate new range data systems while they are in
development and test phase this room was used to demonstrate a potential range
data display system during the last minute our launch will use this room in
the near future to demonstrate vertex which is a software application that
will provide visualization in real time there are many people who take part in
an operation at Wallops but it's not limited to personnel at the facility
almost every project has a principal investigator or experimenter who is our
customer and who is extremely interested in the success of a mission the Wallops
rangecontrol Center does a great job of helping us enable students to fly
payloads into space we come here every year with the hope and expectation that
students are gonna get their payloads into space and every year Wallops
without fail today and without the team you have reaches to students in ways
that only Wallops and NASA can no one else can launch these payloads for
students and knowing that we having that reliability every year we come makes us
helps us have that program with the rock on program the rocks at
programs students build payloads some of them all year long with that hope and
expectation of getting it into space and never for a moment do we worry about it
not getting there thanks to the folks here with your range control center
surveillance systems the team that puts this whole app this whole effort on does
an amazing job for us without that we cannot do it as you can see the RCC is a
flurry of activity during a launch countdown but before a vehicle can take
flight many support services need to be combined into one cohesive team Wallops
employs a stable of test directors and project managers to complete such a task
as the NASA test director I lead an effort to obtain the necessary
arrangements it's through the Navy Federal Aviation Administration US Coast
Guard NASA safety and other organizations and work with a launch
customer to develop a time frame in which to conduct our mission on launch
day this RCC environment allows me to communicate with all team members and a
moment's notice we safely and successfully conduct the mission it's
also my responsibility to ensure all teams and that certain mission criteria
and to lead our team to successful outcome other than a launch pad Rachel
told center is where it all happens teams from the launch vehicle payload
NASA safety radar lemma tree and other range services come together in this
environment as a nasa project manager the RCC environment allows me to
communicate with my team and enrollment notice station checks are completed data
flow tests are conducted potential problems were reported investigated and
eventually resolved in a variety of other checks are for formally reported
literally hundreds or even thousands of simultaneous checks are conducted during
the countdown to ensure that we have a successful mission before arriving in
the RCC for the launch my team and I have spent months preparing for the
mission analyzing trajectories and vehicle safety data conducting hazardous
operations and preparing the vehicle to be ready to launch and ensuring all
range radar telemetry and supporting systems are ready to go we rehearse the
launch until we're a well-oiled machine
rocketry is only one part of the Wallops Flight Arsenal currently unmanned aerial
systems technology is taking off and potential fliers have an increasing need
for dedicated air space to operate their platforms in 2014 the Federal Aviation
Administration named the mid-atlantic Aviation partnership as one of six test
sites around the country led by Virginia Tech University Wallops serves as a test
site for this partnership one of the more unique abilities of the Wolves
range is its mobility Wallops has a plethora of mobile assets to set up a
range literally anywhere around the globe mobile telemetry vans radar
antennas command and control assets and other support equipment can be sent at a
moment's notice to anywhere around the globe Wallops teams have set up mobile
ranges in places such as the South Pacific Australia and dhoya rocket range
and spall bard in Norway Bermuda Coquina North Carolina and
locations the Wallops range is dedicated to enabling the collection of science no
matter where the science is located so that was a quick view of the
rangecontrol Center and how it plays a vital role in all the operations at
Wallops Flight Facility there's much more so keep in touch with us by
checking out our website visiting us on Facebook or even stopping by our Visitor
Center located right near the main base so the next time you see a rocket
soaring through the sky or wonder how we're reaching farther for Science and
Technology think of us right here at Wallops we're making it happen
I guess you're about the only first time it doesn't have TV coverage
Oh
but by a bleep