After several failed launches due to weather, the KiNET-X mission aboard a Black Brant XII rocket blasted off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 8:36 pm on Sunday.
NASA’s KiNET-X mission will study energy and winds in different regions of the atmosphere. It will do that by creating two harmless vapor clouds. Its vapor tracers are made with the same materials used to make fireworks so colorful. As with your July 4 fireworks, these materials are harmless to people on the ground.
First photos are in! 🤩
A Black Brant XII carrying the KiNET-X payload launched from Wallops Flight Facility on May 16, 2021, at 8:44 p.m. EDT. The mission released vapor tracers to explore energy transfer in space.
📸 Did you see the launch? Share your photos below with us! pic.twitter.com/PbTJbTRdFE
— NASA Wallops (@NASAWallops) May 17, 2021
KiNET-X’s launch was just in time, as the launch window was set to expire with less than 10 minutes remaining. If NASA’s launch hadn’t been conducted on Sunday, it would have been delayed until later this year due to the difficulty of seeing the release of vapors because of the position of the moon.
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