KSC-2012-3200

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – Supplies are loaded onto the Miami Air International Boeing 737 airplane that will accompany Orbital Sciences’ L-1011 carrier aircraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to the U.S. Army's Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Forty-nine passengers, including the launch team, are traveling to Kwajalein aboard the charter flight. The launch team is made up of employees of NASA, Orbital Sciences and a.i. solutions. The Pegasus, mated to its NuSTAR payload, will be launched from the carrier aircraft 117 nautical miles south of Kwajalein at latitude 6.75 degrees north of the equator. The high-energy X-ray telescope will conduct a census of black holes, map radioactive material in young supernovae remnants, and study the origins of cosmic rays and the extreme physics around collapsed stars. Launch is scheduled for June 13. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar. Photo credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin, VAFB