{"id":15018,"date":"2016-12-11T00:14:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T16:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/photos-hurricane-research-satellites-readied-for-launch\/"},"modified":"2016-12-11T00:14:37","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T16:14:37","slug":"photos-hurricane-research-satellites-readied-for-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/photos-hurricane-research-satellites-readied-for-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Hurricane research satellites readied for launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eight miniature weather observatories, each the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, were installed on a specially-designed deployer module and mounted on the front end of an air-launched Pegasus XL rocket to prepare for Monday\u2019s flight into orbit.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft are part of NASA\u2019s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, a $157 million project led by scientists at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

Manufactured by the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, the CYGNSS satellites are folded up for launch, but they will extend solar arrays once in orbit to a span of 5.5 feet (1.7 meters), less than the wingspan of an adult bald eagle.<\/p>\n

They will launch off Florida\u2019s East Coast aboard an Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket Monday on a two-year mission to measure winds at the cores of hurricanes.<\/p>\n

These photos show engineers and technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California mounting the CYGNSS satellites on an adapter designed to accommodate all eight spacecraft for launch. The images also show inspections of the Pegasus XL\u2019s nose cone, then the enclosure of the CYGNSS satellites inside the clamshell-like fairing Nov. 14.<\/p>\n

The 55-foot-long (17-meter) Pegasus rocket rolled out of Orbital ATK\u2019s Building 1555 at Vandenberg and was mated with its L-1011 carrier plane, a modified jumbo jet airliner, on Nov. 28. The Pegasus launch crew ferried the rocket on a cross-country flight from Vandenberg to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station\u2019s Skid Strip on Dec. 2 to begin final launch preps.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Rod Speed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Rod Speed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Randy Beaudoin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Randy Beaudoin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Randy Beaudoin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Randy Beaudoin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Mark Mackley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Randy Beaudoin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Dan Herrera of the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Dan Herrera of the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Dan Herrera of the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Dan Herrera of the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Randy Beaudoin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Randy Beaudoin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Kim Shiflett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo credit: NASA\/Bill White<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eight miniature weather observatories, each the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, were installed on a specially-designed deployer module and mounted on the front end of an air-launched Pegasus XL rocket to prepare for Monday\u2019s flight into orbit. The spacecraft are part of NASA\u2019s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, a $157 million project […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2526,3480,159,2292,2105,1827,2899,755],"class_list":["post-15018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-building-1555","tag-cygnss","tag-earth-observation","tag-earth-venture","tag-hurricane","tag-l-1011","tag-orbital-atk","tag-pegasus-xl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}