Look up! Rocket launch will be visible above New Jersey

New Jersey residents will want to have their eyes on the sky one evening this month, as a rocket launch using a NASA facility in Virginia could very well be visible.

Rocket Lab USA’s Electron rocket was slated for launch from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Monday, Jan. 23 at 6 p.m.

A 59-foot-tall Electron rocket would lift off from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia Space’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island.

It could be visible, weather permitting, to residents across much of the East Coast.

The window of time for the mission was 6 — 8 p.m., with back-up launch days as needed.

A live launch webcast would be available beginning about 40 minutes before launch.

‘Space economy’

The mission was dubbed “Virginia is for Launch Lovers.”

The launch would deploy radio frequency monitoring satellites for HawkEye 360 (a Radio Frequency data analytics company) as a way for NASA to support a “growing low-Earth space economy,” according to a written release.

Rocket Lab has facilities in Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, Colorado, Toronto and New Zealand, with its headquarters in Long Beach, California.

Electron has become the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket, according to the company’s website.

They have also been developing a “next generation” large launch vehicle called Neutron, to launch “constellations and large spacecraft missions of the future.”

Erin Vogt is a reporter and anchor for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach her at erin.vogt@townsquaremedia.com

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