If the weather cooperates Tuesday night, eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey residents, along with the rest of the Mid-Atlantic, may have good seats for a rocket launch.
The launch, weather permitting, will take place at a NASA facility on the Delmarva peninsula in Wallops Island, Virginia, just south of Ocean City, Maryland. The launch window opens at 10:30 p.m. and continues past midnight.
We’ll need clear skies and cooperative weather at the launch site on Delmarva, as well as at a monitoring site in North Carolina. We’ll also obviously need clear skies here at home, so we can see the launch of three rockets to our southeast.
If the launch is successful, the rockets will be visible in our southeast sky anywhere from 10 to 40 seconds after launch. The rockets will also emit “vapor tracers” that will form milky white clouds that will allow scientists to “see” and track the winds at the edge of space, at the highest levels of our atmosphere. These vapor tracers aren’t harmful and are made up of the same material that is used in some firework displays.
You can follow the NASA facility on X at @NASA Wallops for updates on the launch, including a livestream and a countdown if the weather permits.
Our skies are forecast to be partly to mostly clear through the night, after a spotty shower or two before sunset. Partly cloudy skies are expected on Delmarva, so there’s a chance of a launch Tuesday night after 10:30 p.m.
Pictures of what the vapor tracing clouds “could” look like are attached, courtesy of NASA Wallops Island. You can also see how long it will take the rocket to be visible where you are, based on your location in relation to the launch site.
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