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 the aircraft that carries it to that altitude is Orbital ATK’s L-1011 aircraft, “Stargazer.”
NASA’s Launch Services Program, or LSP, is based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The program selects the best launcher for each mission’s payload, and selected the Pegasus XL vehicle for the eight microsatellites comprising the CYGNSS spacecraft.
CYGNSS will be the 15th NASA mission LSP has launched aboard the Pegasus vehicle.