Vandenberg RW30
Point Arguello Warning Area Drop Zone, Pacific Ocean - Launch Site: Vandenberg. Launch Pads: 2. Latitude: 36.0000 N. Longitude: 123.0000 W. Pegasus, Pegasus XL.

Single launch complex consisting of 2 launch pads.

  • 1994 June 27 21:15 - STEP 1 Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Destroyed on launch . Pegasus XL F6 Apogee: 38 km (23 mi). Destroyed on launch
  • 1995 April 3 13:48 - Orbcomm F1 Launch Vehicle: Pegasus. Pegasus H F8 Apogee: 747 km (464 mi). Commercial communications testbed. Plane F. Ascending node 199.1 degrees.
  • 1995 June 22 19:58 - STEP 3 Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Second stage failure; destroyed by range safety.. Pegasus XL F9 Apogee: 144 km (89 mi). Space Test Experiment Platform.
  • 1996 March 9 01:53 - REX-II Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F10 Apogee: 835 km (518 mi). LEO
  • 1996 May 17 02:44 - MSTI-3 Launch Vehicle: Pegasus. Pegasus H F11 Apogee: 432 km (268 mi). LEO. Sensor technology tests
  • 1996 July 2 07:48 - TOMS-EP Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F12 Apogee: 746 km (463 mi). LEO. Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer-Earth Probe; atmospheric ozone mapping.
  • 1996 August 21 09:47 - FAST Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F13 Apogee: 4,163 km (2,586 mi). Second Small Explorer mission.
  • 1997 August 1 20:20 - Orbview-2 Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F16 Apogee: 708 km (439 mi).
  • 1997 August 29 15:02 - FORTE Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL 019/F17 Apogee: 833 km (517 mi). FORTE - 'Fast On-orbit Recording of Transient Events' - was a US Los Alamos National Laboratory satellite designed to study natural and artificial radio emissions from the ionosphere. This data was needed to develop technology for monitoring nuclear test ban treaties.
  • 1998 February 26 07:07 - SNOE Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F20 Apogee: 581 km (361 mi). SNOE, the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer. Small satellite built by the University of Colorado to measure the Nitric Oxide density as a function of altitude. First satellite in the STEDI (Student Explorer Demonstration Initiative) program.
  • 1998 April 2 02:42 - TRACE Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F21 Apogee: 652 km (405 mi). NASA's third Small Explorer, the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE), was successfully launched by an Orbital Pegasus XL. The L-1011 carrier aircraft took off from Vandenberg and dropped the Pegasus over the Pacific Ocean. TRACE, a project led by Lockheed's solar physics group, carried a 30-cm extreme ultraviolet imaging telescope which will study the Sun. The telescope mirrors were made by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. TRACE had an 8.5 arcmin field of view and 1 arcsecond resolution.
  • 1998 December 6 00:57 - SWAS Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F25 Apogee: 651 km (404 mi). On December 3 the Orbital Sciences L-1011 Stargazer took off from Vandenberg AFB Runway 30/12 carrying a Pegasus XL launch vehicle with the SWAS satellite aboard. It reached the drop box at 36.0N 123.0W over the Pacific, but due to a software-related problem the range ordered the launch scrubbed and the L-1011 returned to base. After a further delay due to weather, the L-1011 took off at 23:58 GMT on December 5 and SWAS reached orbit and separated from the third stage at 01:09 GMT. SWAS, the Sub-millimetre Wave Astronomy Satellite, had a 0.6m telescope with a 490 to 550 GHz sub-millimetre receiver and an acousto-optical spectrometer. SWAS was used to study the cooling of molecular cloud cores, the sites of star formation in our galaxy, by measuring lines from molecular oxygen and water.
  • 1999 March 5 02:56 - WIRE Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F26/M-22 Apogee: 582 km (361 mi). NASA's long-delayed WIRE (Wide Field Infrared Explorer) astronomy satellite was the fifth Small Explorer (SMEX) mission managed by NASA-Goddard. The L-1011 Stargazer launch aircraft took off from Vandenberg's runway 30/12 at 01:55 GMT on March 2 for the first launch attempt. The planned 02:56 GMT launch was cancelled at T-46 seconds due to a problem with the tail fin release mechanism of the Pegasus XL launch vehicle. The second attempt was successful, with the Pegaus XL being dropped at 36 degrees N x 123 degrees W over the Pacific Ocean at 02:56 GMT. However the WIRE ran into serious trouble shortly after orbit injection. The cover of the solid hydrogen telescope ejected prematurely, and the cryogenic coolant evaporated and vented, spinning the satellite out of control. WIRE was going to make an infrared photometry survey, generating a large catalog of galaxies and quasars.
  • 1999 May 18 05:09 - TERRIERS Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL/HAPS F27 Apogee: 552 km (342 mi). TERRIERS was part of NASA's Student Explorer Demonstration Initiative (STEDI), which was a precursor program to the UNEX (University Explorer) series. STEDI was managed by USRA (the Universities Space Research Association) for NASA, while UNEX was to be more directly managed by NASA-GSFC. TERRIERS was to be operated by the space physics group at Boston University for ionosphere studies, and carried TESS, a set of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectrographs to get electron density and thermosphere emission profiles. The GISSMO instrument measured the solar EUV flux. The spacecraft was built by AeroAstro and based on HETE. TERRIERS was placed in the correct orbit, but it failed to orient its solar panel to the Sun and ran out of battery power by May 20. Controllers were optimistic that when its orbit processes to a better sun angle the satellite could be revived.
  • 2000 June 7 13:19 - TSX 5 Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL. Pegasus XL F29 Apogee: 1,695 km (1,053 mi). Military Technology satellite. Launch delayed from May 20 and June 6. Fifth STEP (Space Test Experiments Program) satellite. The satellite's main section was the STRV-2 experiment module, sponsored by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the UK Ministry of Defense. This was to take infrared images of UK military aircraft at perigee, and then downlink data via laser. STRV-2 also carried vibration isolation and debris impact sensors. A secondary payload was the S97-1 CEASE (Compact Environmental Anomaly Sensor). This was an AFRL prototype sensor package to provide warning of spacecraft charging and radiation events.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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