Pegasus rocket arrives for Cape Canaveral launch
After a more than 13-year absence from the Space Coast, a Pegasus XL rocket carrying eight NASA satellites arrived Friday afternoon at Cape Canaveral in preparation for a Dec. 12 launch.
Orbital ATK’s L-1011 “Stargazer” carrier aircraft touched down on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Skid Strip at 3:57 p.m. with the 57-foot Pegasus attached to its belly.
The Stargazer is expected to take off from the Skid Strip early Dec. 12 and fly to about 40,000 feet before dropping the winged Pegasus rocket over the ocean more than 100 miles east of Daytona Beach.
Launch is targeted for 8:24 a.m., during a one-hour window that opens at 8:19 a.m.
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The three-stage, solid-fueled Pegasus aims to deploy deploy eight small satellites — each weighing about 64 pounds — that comprise NASA’s $157 million Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System mission, or CYGNSS for short.
The spacecraft will measure ocean surface wind speeds within the core of hurricanes to improve understanding about how the storms intensify.
The mission is the 42nd by a Pegasus since its debut in 1990, and the first from Cape Canaveral since April 2003. The rocket has several failures on its record, but none since 1996.
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