Category: Space

Roosevelt “Ted” Mercer Jr heads the Virginia Spaceport Authority, which operates the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The facility regularly hosts blast-offs from Rocket Lab and Northrop Grumman and is on the same site as NASA’s legendary Wallops Flight Facility.

The incident, later blamed on an “energetic event” in the vehicle’s rear, led to four airports in Florida – Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando – halting flights for 80 minutes as fragments of Starship streaked through the sky like fireworks.

The Australian Space Agency said an alert was issued because the re-entry of the Stage II Soyuz 2-1B Fregat mirrored a “near-identical” mission in August 2023.

Southern Launch, which operates the site, confirmed Varda’s W-2 spacecraft touched down using a parachute at 1:02am local time and was monitored on the way down with tracking telescopes.