Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Plans July Hypersonic Hy-BoLT Launch

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility is in a late July launch campaign to loft the Hy-BoLT Hypersonic with a two stage ATK ALV-X1. The new rocket booster will carry three NASA payloads for the suborbital flight. The first payload, from NASA's Langley Research Center, is designed for hypersonic boundary layer research known as the Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition experiment and then two "soccer ball-sized" secondary payloads, from NASA Ames Research Center, will be deployed at the ALV's suborbital trajectory's apogee.

The ATK ALV X-1 booster is a low-cost launch vehicle for the operational responsive space (ORS) market. Possible ORS programs include the delivery of small payloads to low-earth orbit in support of DOD missions, NASA scientific missions, and commercial and university satellite programs.