The CYGNSS spacecraft will ride into orbit aboard an Orbital ATK air-launched Pegasus XL rocket. Orbital ATK’s modified L-1011 aircraft, “Stargazer,” (coincidently the last operational L-1011) will deploy the Pegasus XL and its CYGNSS payload from an altitude of approximately 39,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.

During the two-year mission, the eight CYGNSS micro satellites will fly in formation about 316 miles above Earth’s surface, focusing on the tropics and studying wind speeds and intensification of tropical cyclones such as hurricanes.

Monday, December 12,2016 (First launch attempt)
Monday’s launch was aborted due to an issue with the launch vehicle release system on the L-1011 Stargazer.

Wednesday, December 14,2016 (Second launch attempt)
The CYGNSS launch planned for Wednesday, Dec. 14 is being delayed due to an issue with flight parameter data used by spacecraft software. The issue was discovered during routine testing Tuesday. The new flight parameter data have undergone verification testing on the engineering model, and will be uploaded to the spacecraft on Wednesday.

Successful rocket launch occurred on Thursday, December 15th 2016. All 8 satellites were deployed in orbit as planned.