Stargazer

Lockheed L-1011 TriStar

Mission Profile

Stargazer is Orbital Sciences' (later Northrop Grumman's) modified Lockheed L-1011 TriStar wide-body jet airliner used as the air-launch carrier aircraft for the Pegasus rocket. Operating since 1994, Stargazer carries the Pegasus XL rocket to approximately 12 km altitude before releasing it for an ignition sequence that carries satellites weighing up to 450 kg to low Earth orbit. The air-launch approach allows Pegasus missions to launch from any suitably equipped airport worldwide, without the infrastructure of a fixed launch complex, and provides a moving starting point that reduces the delta-v needed to reach orbit. Stargazer has supported dozens of Pegasus launches from airfields across the continental US, the Kwajalein Atoll, and the Canary Islands.