Vandenberg Launches Sun Satellite

Strapped to the belly of an L-1011 aircraft carrier that took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, a Pegasus rocket deployed NASA’s new Sun-observing satellite at around 7:30 p.m. on 6/27. The two-year IRIS (or Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) mission will help astrophysicists better understand the flow of energy and plasma throughout our solar system’s star. The launch was originally scheduled for the day before but was postponed after last week’s widespread power outage.