At 7:27PM PT on Thursday, an L-1011 jet dropped an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket 39,000 feet in the air. After a brief five-second freefall, the rocket burst to life, heading for the upper reaches of our atmosphere. Ten minutes later, after the three stages of the launch vehicle had burned away, the residual energy propelled the payload — a seven-foot probe — into orbit 328 miles above the earth, where it will idle for the next six months before starting its two-year mission: to explore a little-understood region of our sun, whose vast flows of energy are responsible for both immense fluctuations in temperature and the charged particle-spewing solar wind.
via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/28/4473668/nasa-iris-probe-launch-exploring-mysterious-region-of-solar-atmosphere
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