Will Help Facilitate Partnerships With Commercial Space Companies

NASA and the government of Bermuda have signed an agreement to establish a temporary mobile tracking station on Cooper's Island to support launches from the agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia including future commercial missions. Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Derrick Burgess and NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver signed the agreement.

The mobile tracking station will be provided and operated by Wallops under NASA's Research Range Services Program. The station can provide telemetry, meteorological, optical, and command and control services. It will support the launch of commercial rockets carrying supplies to the International Space Station or satellites to low-Earth orbit.

"This tracking station will help facilitate NASA's partnership with commercial companies and support operations aboard the International Space Station," Garver said. "We're grateful to the government of Bermuda for its ongoing support to NASA."

Bermuda has been a long-time partner of NASA in supporting space exploration. The British territory hosted a radar tracking station from the Mercury Project in the early 1960s through most of the Space Shuttle Program.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/home/cots_project.html