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Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

The Mission, Titled “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” Launches

Rocket Lab’s Electron Rocket lifted off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility January 24, 2023, at 6 p.m. EST. The Mission, Titled “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” is the First Commercial U.S. Electron Launch for Rocket Lab. Credit Brady Kenniston
Rocket Lab’s Electron Rocket lifted off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility January 24, 2023, at 6 p.m. EST. The Mission, Titled “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” is the First Commercial U.S. Electron Launch for Rocket Lab. Credit Brady Kenniston

Electron Rocket lifts off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility

A collective effort led by NASA Goddard’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) branch and with augmented support from Greenbelt via other branches systematically managed constant changes in schedule/budget, personnel availability, and technical requirements for the NASA’s new Autonomous Flight Termination Unit (NAFTU) Project across campuses. Under enormous pressures within a constrained budget & schedule environment, the team met critical engineering milestones for the successful launch of a commercial vehicle on January 26th, 2023. The mission marked the first time NAFTU was deployed on a launch from the United States.

NAFTU is a critical piece of flight safety technology required for the mission, and for future launches from Wallops. The current range ground-based infrastructure responsible for public safety during launches is extremely costly to operate and maintain. The NAFTU deployed is an independent and self-contained subsystem mounted onboard a launch vehicle. NAFTU eliminates the need for a ground-based infrastructure by moving the flight termination function from the ground to the launch vehicle and is considered safer than an individual in the loop making the decision to terminate a flight. In taking NAFTU across the finish line, NASA has delivered an autonomous flight termination system like no other in operation today, filling a critical gap in modernizing the nation’s launch ranges. While other proprietary autonomous flight termination systems are currently in use, NAFTU is different in that it is designed to be used by any launch provider at all U.S. launch ranges, including Wallops, to ensure public safety during operations. Ensuring public safely is the primary mandate of any launch range. This extreme highly visible initiative will be a tremendous opportunity for industry to streamline costs. The agility at times provided by software can overcome challenges presented with components in a system.

The diligent of the team to address the dynamic nature of evolving requirements during development to launch for the programmatic challenges put forth by key stakeholders (e.g, NASA HQ, Kennedy Space Center, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, Federal Aviation Administration), made the deployment to reach technical release of the software system to industry a daunting task as well as game changing technology for launch sites within the U.S. as well as abroad. The combined impact in the Virginia area by NASA is ~$1.15B and ~10,300 jobs. This new capability will surely be an economic boost to the region.