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The Pegasus XL rocket carrying IRIS being deployed from the carrier aircraft.
Image credit: NASA
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[Satellite TODAY 06-26-13] NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft launched Thursday at 7:27 p.m. PDT from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The mission to study the solar atmosphere was placed in orbit by an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket.
The Pegasus XL was deployed from an Orbital L-1011 carrier aircraft over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 39,000 feet, off the central coast of California about 100 miles northwest of Vandenberg. The rocket placed IRIS into a sun-synchronous polar orbit that will allow it to make almost continuous solar observations during its two-year mission.
The L-1011 took off from Vandenberg at 6:30 p.m. PDT and flew to the drop point over the Pacific Ocean where the aircraft released the Pegasus XL. The first stage ignited five seconds later to carry IRIS into space. IRIS successfully separated from the third stage of the Pegasus rocket at 7:40 p.m., and by 8:05 p.m. the IRIS team confirmed the spacecraft had successfully deployed its solar arrays. The team also confirmed that all the satellite systems are operating as expected.
"Congratulations to the entire team on the successful development and deployment of the IRIS mission," said IRIS Project Manager Gary Kushner of the Lockheed Martin Solar and Atmospheric Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif. "Now that IRIS is in orbit, we can begin our 30-day engineering checkout followed by a 30-day science checkout and calibration period."
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