Name: INCUS — Firefly Alpha Block 2
Start: 2027-12-31T00:00:00Z
End: 2027-12-31T00:00:00Z
Location: Launch Area 0 A

Question 1

What rocket is launching INCUS?

Accepted Answer

INCUS is launching on the Firefly Alpha Block 2.

Question 2

Who is launching INCUS?

Accepted Answer

INCUS is being launched by Firefly Aerospace, a commercial launch provider founded in 2014.

Question 3

Where is INCUS launching from?

Accepted Answer

INCUS is launching from Launch Area 0 A at Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA.

Question 4

What orbit is INCUS heading to?

Accepted Answer

INCUS is heading to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Question 5

Is the Firefly Alpha Block 2 reusable?

Accepted Answer

No — the Firefly Alpha Block 2 is an expendable launch vehicle.

Question 6

What is the INCUS mission?

Accepted Answer

The Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) is a NASA Earth science mission led by Colorado State University that will investigate the behavior of tropical storms in order to better represent these storms in weather and climate models. It consists of 3 SmallSats flying in tight coordination to study why convective storms, heavy precipitation, and clouds occur exactly when and where they form. 

Each satellite will have a high frequency precipitation radar that observes rapid changes in convective cloud depth and intensities. 1 of the 3 satellites also will carry a microwave radiometer to provide the spatial content of the larger scale weather observed by the radars. By flying so closely together, the satellites will use the slight differences in when they make observations to apply a novel time-differencing approach to estimate the vertical transport of convective mass.

Question 7

Where is NASA's Wallops Flight Facility?

Accepted Answer

Wallops Flight Facility is NASA's own launch range on Virginia's Eastern Shore, operating since 1945 and managed through Goddard Space Flight Center. It also hosts the commercial Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS).

Question 8

What launches from Wallops?

Accepted Answer

Wallops flies NASA's long-running sounding-rocket programme alongside orbital launches: Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo missions to the ISS on the Antares rocket from Pad 0A, Minotaur vehicles from Pad 0B, and Rocket Lab's Electron from Launch Complex 2.

Question 9

Can you watch a launch from Wallops?

Accepted Answer

The NASA Wallops Visitor Center is the designated public viewing area and posts information for each flight. Nearby Chincoteague and the Assateague seashore also give open-horizon views across the water.

Question 10

What was the first orbital launch from Wallops?

Accepted Answer

The first orbital launch from Wallops was TacSat-2, on an Orbital Sciences Minotaur in December 2006. Wallops later launched LADEE, the first deep-space mission to fly from Virginia, in 2013.

INCUS

Overview

Mission details

Launch Window

Schedule Updates

Launch Area 0 A

Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA

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