NSF Pegasus XL Launch AIM 20070425

Video from the channel Je Thompson about Pegasus XL, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:55. Language: English. Video type: Launch.

A Pegasus XL launches the AIM spacecraft, built to study Earth's highest clouds, at the edge of space. The broadcast covers the countdown, the drop from the carrier aircraft and ignition. It includes footage from a chase F-18 and an infrared shot from Santa Ynez Peak, with telemetry tracked from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

After the drop, the first stage ignites. The vehicle pitches up to 35 degrees at over 1,500 miles per hour, passes through maximum dynamic pressure and clears 100,000 feet at about 3,000 miles per hour. When the first stage burns out it separates and the second stage ignites, burning for about 70 seconds. The fairing is then jettisoned and the upper stage enters a coast phase. At the end of it the third stage ignites, and by about seven and a half minutes into the mission the vehicle exceeds 12,000 miles per hour at more than 260 miles altitude.

Preliminary data indicate a nominal orbit. Around the nine-minute mark, at over 17,000 miles per hour and about 600 km altitude, the vehicle reorients and releases the AIM spacecraft. It then maneuvers to avoid contaminating or colliding with it. The chase plane pilot describes the drop and ignition as clean.