NASA Rocket Launch Set for Skies Over Rhode Island Tuesday

Look up Tuesday night and you may just see a rocket over the skies of Rhode Island taking a special package into space.

A U.S. Air Force Minotaur I rocket is scheduled to lift-off at 7:30 p.m.  from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad-0B at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The Minotaur will launch the Air Force's Operationally Responsive Space Office's ORS-3 mission, which features the deployment of 29 satellites in space.

The launch window is 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., and we should get a good view in Rhode Island as the forecast calls for clear skies all night throughout most of the state.  

The backup launch days run through Nov. 26. 

From NASA: 

"The Minotaur's primary payload is the Space Test Program Satellite-3 (STPSat-3), an Air Force technology-demonstration mission. Thirteen small cubesats aboard are being provided through NASA's Cubesat Launch Initiative. Among the cubesats is NASA's Small Satellite Program PhoneSat 2 second generation smartphone mission. Also included is the first cubesat built by high school students."

If you want to see the launch from a closer view, the NASA Visitor Center at Wallops and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge/Assateague Island National Seashore will be open for viewing.  Visitors to Assateague need to be on the island by 6 p.m. before the entrance gate closes.