Pegasus ICON Rollout to Hotpad

The Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL vehicle is transported from Building 1555 to the hot pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, on Oct. 14, 2018. NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) is secured inside the rocket's payload fairing. The Pegasus XL rocket will be attached beneath the company's L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, and travel to the Skid Strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. ICON will launch aboard the Pegasus XL rocket on Oct. 26, 2018, from the Skid Strip at the Cape. ICON will study the frontier of space - the dynamic zone high in Earth's atmosphere where terrestrial weather from below meets space weather above. The explorer will help determine the physics of Earth's space environment and pave the way for mitigating its effects on our technology, communications systems and society.