New
way to launch Satellites
In
early 2002, NASA tested the
Pegasus rocket, which was be dropped from the belly of an L-1011 jet off
the coast of Central Florida to carry NASA's HESSI solar explorer
spacecraft into Earth orbit.
This
thing had been
delayed 19 months by six different concerns
(including getting damaged during a vibration test ), but finally
it was ready ready for the much
anticipated HESSI satellite to soar into space to study the
most powerful explosions in the solar system.
The High Energy Solar Spectroscopic
Imager spacecraft will ride to a 373-mile-high perch above the planet
aboard an air-launched Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket.
The launcher was be flown 75
miles off the coast of Palm Bay, Florida, and released from the belly of the
Lockheed jetliner. The launch -
drop - of the
Pegasus booster will
begin the nine-and-a-half minute flight
to orbit. By
launching from altitude, you burn less than half the fuel of
launching from a pad on the ground.
The $85 million HESSI mission was
designed for NASA by the University of California-Berkeley to explore
what causes solar flares to erupt from the Sun and how they release
their energy. Such flares can damage orbiting satellites, threaten the
health of astronauts, disrupt communications and knock out power grids
on Earth.
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