Watch NASA Rocket Launch In New York Sky Saturday Night

Upstate New Yorkers will be able to see the vapor trail from a NASA rocket launch if the weather conditions hold out.

Usually, you would be heading to Cape Canaveral to witness a rocket launch. But according to NASA, when a rocket takes flight from a NASA facility in Virginia shortly after 8pm this Saturday night the vapor trail should be visible across the eastern seaboard, including here in Upstate New York. NASA says the rocket launch is actually an energy experiment to "...study a very fundamental problem in space plasmas, namely, how are energy and momentum transported between different regions of space that are magnetically connected."

Maybe like me all that went right over your head, and you are simply wondering how can I see cool space stuff happening Saturday night? Here is how things will play out. NASA says a 40-minute launch window for the rocket will start at 8:02 pm. If conditions allow, that is when the launch will take place. Between 9 minutes 30 seconds and 10 minutes into the launch a vapor will be released from the rocket as part of the experiment, that NASA says will "form two green-violet clouds that may be visible for about 30 seconds." Weather conditions could affect the visibility of the vapor trail.

If you want to track the launch so you know exactly when to look for the vapor clouds live coverage of the launch will start at 7:40 pm from the Virginia launch site called "Wallops" here. NASA says you can also keep tabs on the launch on the Wallops Facebook and Twitter feeds. If conditions are not ideal for a launch Saturday night, NASA has backup launch days set aside through May 16th so follow those social feeds for an update if the launch gets delayed.