The wild, but underwhelming ride that has been Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s effort to revolutionize the launch industry with the Stratolaunch aircraft has taken another turn. Yesterday, Stratolaunch Systems announced an agreement with Orbital ATK to use the massive carrier aircraft to loft Pegasus XL rockets for air launch, a move which would supplant the […]
$16.5 Million Dollars Ago. OSC Pegasus Launches IRIS. Image Credit : NASA In case there was any doubt there is still a long, long way to go in reducing launch prices across the spectrum, consider this NASA press release from November 20th. CONTRACT RELEASE C14-047 NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Ionospheric Connection Explorer NASA […]
A recent KSC launch award to Orbital Sciences Corporation for a 2016 mission highlights just how expensive the Pegasus booster, once hailed as revolutionary, has become. The $55 million order for the air launched Pegasus for the CYGNSS mission is nearly what SpaceX is charging a commercial customer for the EELV class Falcon 9, […]
Orbital Sciences Press Release: Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB) announced today that its Pegasus® rocket successfully launched the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) satellite for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The IRIS spacecraft was deployed into its targeted orbit approximately 400 miles above the Earth and early results confirm that the satellite is […]
Following a one day delay due to a power outage in the area around Vandenberg AFB. Orbital Sciences is preparing to launch NASA’s IRIS satellite aboard the air launched Pegasus XL booster. IRIS, which stands for Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, is designed to study the behavior of a little understood region of the sun’s atmosphere, the “interface” region […]
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