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A NASA mission to loft a satellite from an airplane to probe Earth's atmosphere at the edge of the world is more than just a glitch with its rocket that was detected just before launch early Wednesday (Nov. 7).
The Stargazer L-1011 carrier carrying NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer satellite, or ICON, had already taken off from its staging ground at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station when an issue was detected on the Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket that was launched satellite from the air at 3:05 am EST (0705 GMT). The next launch opportunity for ICON is on Thursday (Nov. 8), NASA officials said.
"NASA and Northrop Grumman scrubbed today's launch of #PegasusXL due to off-nominal data received during the captive carry flight," representatives with Northrop Grumman, which built the rocket, said in a Twitter update after the launch scrub. The L-1011 Stargazer carrier aircraft has returned to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and an investigation into the anomaly will begin soon, they added.
An artist's depiction of the ICON spacecraft at work studying the boundary between Earth and space.
Credit: NASA Goddard 's Conceptual Image Lab / B. Monroe
The launch scrub is the latest in a string of deadlines for the ICON mission over the last year. The satellite was originally scheduled for a launch on Dec. 8, 2017, before rocket issues forced NASA to postpone it deep into 2018. The initial launch for ICON called for its Stargazer L-1011 to take off from a US Army base on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean. After the initial delays last year, NASA moved the staging ground for the launch to Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
NASA's ICON satellite is in good health as engineers assess the issue with its Pegasus XL booster, Northrop Grumman representatives said.
Northrop Grumman's Stargazer L-1011 carrier plane carrying the Pegasus XL rocket that will launch NASA's ICON satellite into orbit arrives at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Oct. 19, 2018. The satellite is scheduled to be air-launched from the Stargazer using the Pegasus XL on Nov. 7, 2018, but a technical glitch delayed the flight.
Credit: Kim Shiflett / NASA
ICON is a $ 252 million mission to study Earth's ionosphere, a level of Earth's radiation, like never before. The satellite will orbit about 360 miles (575 km) above Earthquake winds and sun's own solar wind wave shape, which covers a region roughly 50 to 400 miles (80 to 645 km) above the planet. Scientists hope the spacecraft will help us to understand the impact of the Earth's energy and the planet. NASA officials said.
Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
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