This artist's illustration shows what NuSTAR should look like in
orbit after its 30-foot-long mast deployed. This artist's
illustration shows what NuSTAR should look like in orbit after
its 30-foot-long mast deployed. JPL-Caltech/NASA A NASA mission
aimed at surveying black holes and supernovae, among other
things, launched successfully today at noon ET from beneath the
belly of a wide-body jet flying approximately 40,000 feet above
a darkened Pacific Ocean. The 772-pound NuSTAR X-ray observatory
was carried into an equatorial orbit about 400 miles above the
Earth by a Pegasus rocket, which fired its three-stage motor for
13 minutes after being dropped by the L-1011 jet. The Pegasus
launch system has been used in more than 40 missions and can
carry payloads of up to 1,000 pounds into low-Earth Orbit. The
NuSTAR launch team flew out of the Kwajalein Atoll's Ronald
Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site. The world's largest
coral atoll, Kwajalein is part of the Marshall Islands and sits
about half way betwe