Robin Heard, wife of former Iolan Scott Heard, will be the voice of NASA Wednesday afternoon as part of coverage of a cargo rocket launch to support the International Space Station.
Heard, who has worked at Nothrop Grumman for the past 15 years, will anchor coverage of the Anteres rocket, carrying its Cygnus cargo spacecraft through NASAs commercial partner, Northrop Grumman.
The launch, as well as briefings preceding and following liftoff, will air live on NASA Television and the agencys website.
Loaded with 7,500 pounds of research, crew supplies and hardware, this is Northrop Grummans 11th commercial resupply NASA-contracted mission. It will launch from Virginia Spaces Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility off the coast of Virginia.
Robin will broadcast the launch from the NASA Space Center in Houston.
About 2½ hours after launch, an automated command will initiate deployment of the spacecrafts solar arrays. Full deployment will take approximately 30 minutes.
The Cygnus spacecraft, dubbed the SS Roger Chaffee, will arrive at the space station early Friday.
Robin, a Paxico native, holds a chemical engineering degree from Kansas State University, with a masters degree also in chemical engineering from Arizona State. She and Scott live in Gilbert, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix. She and Scott met while students at K-State.
Scott is the son of Iolans David and Mary Kay Heard.
