of flight. In 1958, Congress established NASA, which absorbed Langley Research Center and other NACA field centers and research facilities. At that time, the Pilotless Aircraft Research Station became a separate facility, Wallops Station, operating directly under NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1959, NASA acquired the former Naval Air Station Chincoteague, and engineering and administrative activities were moved to this location. In 1974, the Wallops Station was named Wallops Flight Center. The name was changed to Wallops Flight Facility in 1981, when it became part of Goddard Space Flight Center. In the early years, research at Wallops concentrated on obtaining aerodynamic data at transonic and low supersonic speeds. Between 1959 and 1961, Project Mercury capsules were tested at Wallops in support of NASA's manned space flight program - the Mercury program - before astronauts were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Some of these tests using the Little Joe booster rocket were designed to flight-qualify components of the spacecraft, including the escape and recovery systems and some of the life support systems. Two rhesus monkeys, Sam and Miss Sam, were sent aloft as pioneers for astronauts; both were recovered safely. The first payload launched into orbit from Wallops Island was Explorer IX, atop a Scout rocket, on February 15, 1961.<ref>Myler, Joseph L. "7-Mile Salt Marsh, Sand Strip in Virginia Oldest, Tiniest Spaceport in U.S." (March 16, 1961), UPI via The Middlesboro Daily News", p. 3</ref> On September 6, 2013, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) was launched from Wallops, atop a Minotaur V rocket. This was the first time that an American lunar mission had been launched from anywhere but Florida. Wallops Island is currently experiencing beach erosion of 10 to 22 feet (3 to 7 meters) a year, due in part to the current sea level rise; some access roads and parking lots have had to be rebuilt several times over the past five years. NASA has responded by continually fortifying the shoreline with sand. A permanent ground control station for NASA's RQ-4 Global Hawk drone is at Wallops Flight Facility. Facilities The WFF Main Base is located on the Eastern Shore of Virginia on the Delmarva Peninsula about west of Chincoteague, Virginia; about north of Norfolk, Virginia, and southeast of Salisbury, Maryland. The WFF consists of three separate parcels of land totaling 6,200 acres (25 km²): the Main Base, the Mainland, and