Virginia's Place in Space

Moret: At a high level, what’s the relationship between MARS and NASA Wallops?

Nash: We have a Commercial Space Act agreement. It has been in place since 1995. We are a tenant within Wallops. As you come to our pads, you will go through NASA. You need a NASA badge to get on. As you get to our facilities, you need an additional badge to get into the MARS facilities.

We have long-term leases and we have been able to build complementary services, not competitive ones. There would not be orbital launches if we hadn’t built the launch pads. We built the brand-new payload processing facility to handle national security launches that have to be at that highest level of security. We are an add-on and an enhancement to this big capability that NASA has to help enable the private sector or even the public sector to come in and do additional work.

Moret: As you think about the future, what are the opportunities for commercial space to grow in Virginia?

Nash: I think the opportunities are excellent for commercial space growth at Wallops, as demonstrated by Rocket Lab. That was a very significant win for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Space, and NASA Wallops. We had tremendous support from the Commonwealth, beginning with Secretary Shannon Valentine, who helped us secure a Transportation Opportunity Fund grant in record time, and very, very strong support from the Governor, who, as you know, comes from the Eastern Shore and has been a tremendous supporter from his days in the Senate on up. Also, I don’t want to forget Secretary of Commerce and Trade Brian Ball, along with Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne.

That was a key part of securing Rocket Lab at Wallops, as well as what we could offer in speed of construction, the expertise with our engineers and hands-on technicians, the flexibility and responsiveness with range. Rocket Lab is anticipating a launch cadence of about a dozen launches a year, and we feel like we can go beyond that with NASA support and the facilities we’re building for Rocket Lab.

Moret: Are there any other examples of commercial space growth at Wallops? What are the opportunities moving forward and how will that affect future operations?

Nash: You have the capability for at least a couple more launch pads. You could also have co-use of an existing pad. For instance, where we launch the Minotaurs, you will have a family of solid rocket motors there, but it may be modified to have a liquid fuel come out of there as well. The MARS payload processing facility can absolutely handle multiple customers.

Moret: Have there been any challenges that have come with MARS being located in a rural area on the Eastern Shore? On a related note, how has the facility impacted the local economy there?

Nash: We commissioned a study by Old Dominion University that showed we have over $1.3 billion a year impact to the region between NASA, Navy, NOAA, Coast Guard, ourselves, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab, the unmanned systems. It’s a very big impact to a rural area that is primarily agricultural. We’re finding that it’s not that hard to attract people to the region for space. Space is a magnet. You get some really bright people.

We did have challenges initially getting people to locate there. With our internship program, we work with the local community college very hard to develop our technician workforce. We work with engineers in Virginia and surrounding states. On the interns, part of the interview process is, “Would you be willing to locate to a rural area here? Would you be willing to come here later on?”

People from Virginia Tech, [the University of] Virginia, and others, if they have grown up in a rural area or Hampton Roads — Old Dominion students — seem to have no problem relocating to the area. In the community college, we have found some really bright people who live there already, so their family, their parents, and their grandparents are there. It’s not a tough discussion to talk to someone who may be an electrician, a welder, or an IT person with a two-year degree and very smart to come to work there.

Moret: Now, what about the commercial space supply chain? Have you seen any parts of that either relocated because of Wallops, or is there an opportunity for that perhaps to happen in the future?

Nash: Yes. As Northrop Grumman came on and the launch rate picked up, more and more of the work migrated to Wallops. It’s not just an integration — it’s definitely final assembly of the entire rocket. NASA Wallops has a strong history with smaller satellites. Rocket Lab will be building or doing a lot of final assembly on their rockets. Potential customers have expressed an interest to fully or mostly build the rocket on the Eastern Shore. Rockets are things that you like to build or complete final assembly closer to the pad. It’s one that we think has real potential to grow the supply chain closer to where we launch them.

We hope and expect to have the same thing coming into the Wallops Research Park. We have built the first building there for Rocket Lab. An integration and control facility where they can process two rockets at a time and have their control center and process small satellites all in one building going into the research park. That’s a real draw as we talk with other folks.

Moret: Expand, if you will, on the new payload processing facility at Wallops and how that impacts capabilities on the Eastern Shore.

Nash: National security launches are a big part of what we do in the U.S. There was a definite interest for the smaller satellites looking at Wallops, but the payload processing, which is a good capability that NASA has, was really split between two to three separate buildings. We needed a nice payload processing facility, and we were successful in getting Governor McAuliffe to give us $20 million toward this. It ended up being around $31 million.

It is a very secure, very clean, enabling capability that brings the payload customers here, puts us on their radar, and is a big enabling feature that then sells launches and brings the supply chain in. What an operating room is to a hospital, a payload processing facility is to a spaceport, and we have one of the nicest ones in the world right now and one of the most secure.

Moret: Dale, talk a little bit about launch day. What’s it like from an internal operations side? Do you still get a rush out of it like you used to?

Nash: Well, It really begins about two weeks in advance. We crank up to 24-hour operations, seven days a week, and a lot of things — countdown, the fueling, the validation of systems, and everything else. I still get butterflies every single time.

You want to make it through the count. Once it goes, there’s not a lot of doubt whether it was a success or failure. It is a rush. At some point, the rocket takes over internally, and then it’s going to go or it’s going to shut itself down. Sometimes those last three seconds or so, or the first three seconds before it’s actually clearing the launch pad, seem like an eternity.

It is nerve-wracking, but very exciting. We certainly like the successful ones. An unsuccessful one can be very exciting, too, but all in the wrong direction. We do have a lot of energy, and you do know what can happen. Each successful launch is just an amazing thing to have happen, but it’s tough on the nervous system at times, too. After 38 years, I still get excited.

Moret: Can you give me a bit of an overview of the opportunities surrounding unmanned flight on the Eastern Shore? What kind of increase have you seen in traffic on the runway there? What sort of opportunities do you see for the future?

Nash: We built a dedicated airfield that NASA had the engineering and permit for, but couldn’t get the funding, so Virginia stepped in and built it out there. We had thought that it might be able to pick up a little more commercial. It is in NASA restricted air space, and you can’t just let anybody come in there and fly, but it has become a very strong destination for government UAS tests or those companies like the Northrops and Lockheeds that build unmanned systems for the government.