Wallops Island, a NASA flight facility off the east coast of Virginia, is about to be propelled from obscurity.
Orbital Sciences Corporation, a company that develops and applies space technology for use on earth, will test launch one of its Antares rockets at about 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
The test flight, which Orbital calls A-ONE mission, is the first of two NASA-sponsored missions for the rockets, which will launch heavy spacecrafts weighing up to 14,000 pounds into low-Earth orbit.
According to their website, the medium-class vehicle is currently rolled out onto the runway and prepared for lift-off.
The unmanned rocket will be sent into orbit and return to Earth in a few months.
The Associated Press reports the trip will turn Wallops Island, "from little-known launch pad for small research rockets to a major player in the U.S. space program."
"The real transformation here at Wallops is we've always been kind of a research facility," William Wrobel, the facility's director, said. "So this transition is really kind of into an operational phase, where we're going to be doing kind of regular flights out of here to the space station."
If the launch goes as planned, Orbital will continue working with unmanned vessels in attempts to gain heightened clout. If the move proves successful, Orbital will launch eight more missions from Wallops Island under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA.
"This launch is going to be a real watershed event," Dale Nash, executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority said. "We are getting into the big time."
Orbital has been in business for upwards of 30 years. They produce some of the U.S. military and NASA's small satellites and rockets. This is the first time the company has worked with mid-level size rockets like Antares, which carry up two twice the amount of a load than previous rockets.
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