Several space
technologies will be put to the test with the launch of a suborbital
rocket at 8 p.m. EDT on Thursday from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Called
Suborbital Technology Experiment Carrier-8 or SubTec-8, the launch is
designed to test new technologies to improve the capability of
conducting suborbital science missions. Some of these technologies
also may be applied to orbital spacecraft. The launch may be visible
in the Chesapeake Bay region.
SubTec-8 will
fly on a Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket and is predicted
to reach an altitude of 128 miles before descending by parachute and
landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The first SubTec launch occurred in
2005.
SubTec-8
technologies include distributed
payload communications that
will allow multipoint measurements for scientists to study multiple
regions in space simultaneously; a low cost star tracker for
assisting in pointing the rocket when taking astronomical
observations; and a high data rate encoder that will provide the
ability to transmit data from the rocket to the ground four times
faster than currently available.