A sounding rocket carried four university projects briefly into space Sunday after rough weather delayed the launch several times at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.
The 43-foot-tall Terrier-Improved Malemute rocket launched at 6:51 a.m., reaching an altitude of 107 miles above Earth before descending into the Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA.
Launches were postponed Thursday-Saturday due to rough seas that would have imperiled efforts to recover the payload by boat about 70 miles offshore from Wallops, NASA said.
The cargo included propulsion systems for small spacecraft; a new wire insulation material; a small re-entry spacecraft; and a deployable boom and solar blanket for small satellites.
The projects were created by undergraduate students from four universities: Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne; University of Kentucky, Lexington; Utah State University, Logan; and Univeristy of Nebraska, Lincoln.
