ASPIRE Launch from Wallops Successful
April 1, 2018
![](https://www.wgmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Wallops-ASPIRELaunch.jpg)
Image courtesy NASA/Wallops Flight Facility
NASA had a successful launch Saturday morning. ASPIRE is the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment and NASA was testing a parachute for possible future missions to Mars. The parachute payload was deployed by a suborbital sounding rocket to an altitude of about 32 miles, then splashed-down in the Atlantic off Wallops Island where data was retrieved and will be investigated.
In May, there will be a launch from the Wallops Flight Facility of an Antares rocket which will carry an resupply mission to the International Space Station.
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