The flight crew aboard the Stargazer is working through its climb/cruise checklist as it sets off toward the proper location and altitude to deploy the Pegasus XL rocket for launch at 8:35 a.m.
Climb/Cruise Checklist
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The flight crew aboard the Stargazer is working through its climb/cruise checklist as it sets off toward the proper location and altitude to deploy the Pegasus XL rocket for launch at 8:35 a.m.
The Orbital ATK "Stargazer" L-1011 aircraft has taken off from the Skid Strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Attached to its underside is the company's Pegasus XL rocket containing the eight CYGNSS microsatellites.
The NASA F-18 chase plane has taken off from the Skid Strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It will be followed a few minutes from now by the Stargazer aircraft carrying the Pegasus XL rocket and, sealed inside the rocket's payload fairing, the CYGNSS payload.
The launch team is ‘go' for takeoff. Standing by for takeoff of the F-18 chase plane. The Orbital ATK Stargazer carrying the Pegasus XL rocket is expected to take off at 7:38 a.m. Launch time remains 8:35 a.m.
The NASA F-18 clase plane that will provide visual contact and video of the L-1011 and Pegasus XL rocket once they're airborne is taxiing into position for takeoff from the Skid Strip runway at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
NASA Launch Manager Tim Dunn has polled his team and given the L-1011 clearance for takeoff.
The Orbital ATK Stargazer L-1011 aircraft is taxiing to the end of the runway at the Skid Strip in preparation for takeoff. The F-18 chase plane should follow shortly.
Standing by for taxi of the L-1011, as well as the chase plane, which will take off prior to the L-1011.
The three-stage, all-solid-fueled Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket is the only airborne, commercially developed launch vehicle. At 55 feet long, if stood on its end it would be about half the height of the Statue of Liberty. Its 39,000-foot deployment altitude is 10,000 feet higher than Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth – and …
CYGNSS will utilize a constellation of eight microsatellite observatories that will be placed in a circular orbit more than 316 miles above the Earth's surface. With an orbital inclination of 35 degrees, the small spacecraft will concentrate on the region nearest the equator — the tropics — where these cyclones form. The mission will measure …