Almost two weeks after the first scrubbed attempt, NASA successfully launched 5 rockets to study winds in the upper atmosphere early this morning (at 4:58 a.m.). Previous attempts from Wallops Flight Facility were called off due to either cloudy skies or technical difficulties.
The five launches were completed in slightly more than five minutes, spaced about 80 seconds apart.
Each of the ATREX (Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment) mission’s rockets emitted a chemical tracer that painted milky white streaks in the upper atmosphere.
These contrails could be seen as far south as Wilmington, NC, west to Charleston, W. Va., and north to Buffalo, NY NASA said.
Here’s a cool time lapse video of the contrails from the launch, taken from Columbus, New Jersey:
NASA ATREX Launch from Columbus, NJ. Canon 50d, 8 sec, ISO 800, F3.2, Cropped 17mm. Posted to YouTube by leeedomphoto
Here’s the launch video from NASA
In the above video, the launch of the 5 rockets can be seen at the following intervals:
1st launch at :37
2nd launch at 1:57
3rd launch at 3:16
4th launch at 4:35
5th launch at 5:56
Related: NASA ATREX mission website