National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard Space Flight Center

Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia

Inside Wallops

 Volume XX-01 Number: 23 July 16, 2001

Wallops Senior Manager Announces Retirement

Dr. Arnold Torres, senior manager at

the NASA Goddard Space Flight

Centers Wallops Flight Facility, since

January 1995, has announced that he

will retire at the end of the year.

Torres said, The end of this year will

mark seven years since I became senior

manager at Wallops and Director of

Suborbital and Special Orbital Projects.

Wallops has accomplished many

wonderful things during this time, and

I am proud to have been associated with

the talented and dedicated men and

women who made this possible.

We will miss Arnold a great deal, said

Goddard Director A. V. Diaz. Hes

been a champion for the Wallops Flight

Facility and a passionate advocate for

the people there. His advice and

counsel have been invaluable, and I

know he will lend his personal

knowledge and energy to finding a

successor and ensure a smooth

Most rocket launches are conducted at

established launch facilities that are

fully equipped with radars, control

facilities and other support equipment.

But what do you do if the range is not

fully equipped or the mission needs to

be conducted where there is no existing

launch range?

For more than 30 years the NASA

Goddard Space Flight Centers Wallops

Flight Facility, has answered the call

with its mobile range to support rocket

launches around the world for

government and commercial

organizations.

Jack Vieira, Wallops range support

manager, said The Wallops mobile

range capabilities are unique not only

within NASA but throughout the world.

We have available the needed tracking

equipment for most any type of rocket

launch. We have even supported the

smaller suborbital rocket missions with

launch rails and pads.

Wallops has provided its mobile range

capabilities to support sounding rocket

and orbital rocket launches at sites that

include the Canary Islands, Puerto

Rico, Australia, Greenland, Brazil, Peru

and even an aircraft carrier off the coast

of Ecuador.

The Wallops mobile range is in action

again by supporting the late summer

launch of the Lockheed Martin Athena 1

vehicle carrying NASA and

Department of Defense satellites. The

launch will be from the Kodiak Launch

Complex (KLC) on Kodiak Island,

Alaska.

For this mission, NASA Wallops will

be providing an array of tracking

equipment and support vans that will

be located at Kodiak and the town of

Cordova, on the Alaskan mainland just

north of Kodiak Island. Wallops

support will include range safety, radar

tracking and telemetry.

Pat Ladner, Executive Director of the

Alaska Aerospace Development

Corporation (AADC), said The

Wallops range safety support has a

reputation for being second to none. 

AADC is proud to have Wallops

supporting the first orbital launch from

the KLC.

Vieira said, Planning and testing has

been ongoing at Wallops for more than

a year to support the Athena launch.

The Rocket Range on Wheels ................

NASA Wallops Answers the Call

Testing of the equipment at Wallops has

been intensive for the last five months.

At Kodiak, Wallops is providing an 8-

foot diameter radar system, 10-foot and

18-foot diameter telemetry antennas

and vans, a power van, and a Mobile

Command Range System van. At

Cordova, Wallops will provide an11-

foot diameter radar, a 27-foot diameter

telemetry antenna and support van, a

mobile command van, and a power van.

In addition to the myriad of

equipment, Wallops will be supplying

33 personnel to support the mission,

said Vieira, a veteran of two mobile

campaigns.

The equipment and Wallops personnel

will arrive at their respective sites by

mid-July to support the targeted August

31 launch.

Dr. Arnold Torres

transition to a new director of

Wallops.

During Torres tenure, Wallops

underwent many changes that

increased its strategic value to NASA

and the nations aerospace industry.

The facility began management of the

Space Shuttles small payloads GetAway-Specials, Hitchhikers, and Space

Experiment Modules; development of

an Ultra-Long Duration Balloon for

flights up to 100 days; commercialization of the NASA sounding rocket

operations; and development of the

Wallops Partnership, which includes

NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Navy, the U.S.

Coast Guard and the Virginia

Commercial Space Flight Authority.

Torres said, Over the next six months,

as we finalize and begin the

implementation of the Wallops Mission

2005, our strategic value to NASA and

to the nation will become even

stronger. I will leave here feeling good

about the future of Wallops.

Torres received his Ph.D. in chemistry

from the University of South Carolina.

He joined NASA in 1978 as an

atmospheric scientist. He has been

recognized as having made pivotal

contributions to science and in 1985

he was awarded the Goddard Space

Flight Center Exceptional Achievement Award.

Torres and his wife, Linda, reside in

Pocomoke City, Md.

The launch of the GOES-M

environmental satellite for NASA and

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) aboard a

Lockheed Martin Atlas IIA rocket (AC142) has been postponed one week to

no earlier than July 22.

This new launch date is pending the

repair and delivery of the Remote

Control Unit, a portion of the launch

vehicle guidance system on the Centaur

upper stage. The launch window on

July 22 is 3:01 - 4:25 a.m. EDT.

Launch of Goes-M Weather

Satellite Postponed

TSP Open Season

The current Thrift Saving Plan open

season, in which employees may

start, stop or change contribution

amounts to the plans funds ends

July 31. The next open season will

run November 15 thru January 31.