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 …
NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System mission, or CYGNSS, is scheduled to begin this morning with launch aboard an Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket at 8:35 a.m. EST. The one-hour launch window extends until 9:21 a.m. Forecasters with the U.S. Air Force 45th Weather Squadron predict a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions at launch …
Today’s launch of NASA’s CYGNSS spacecraft aboard an Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket now is scheduled for 8:35 a.m. EST. The launch window extends to 9:21 a.m. The weather outlook has improved to a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions at launch time, with cumulus clouds the primary concern. Weather currently is “green” on all Eastern Range …
