IMAGE
Delta 7326-9.5
United States Air Force
Mission
IMAGE
- Type: Planetary Science
- Orbit: Elliptical Orbit
IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration) uses neutral atom, ultraviolet, and radio imaging techniques to identify the dominant mechanisms for injecting plasma into the magnetosphere on substorm and magnetic storm time scales, determine the directly driven response of the magnetosphere to solar wind changes; and, discover how and where magnetospheric plasmas are energized, transported, and subsequently lost during substorms and magnetic storms.
Location
Space Launch Complex 2W
Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
Find the best place to watch the launch from Vandenberg
Space Launch Complex 2W has witnessed the launch of 98 rockets, including 98 orbital launch attempts. While Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA, has been the site for 811 rocket launches.
Vandenberg Space Force Base is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from the Western Range, and also performs missile testing. The United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 30 serves as the host delta for the base, equivalent to an Air Force air base wing. In addition to its military space launch mission, Vandenberg Space Force Base also hosts space launches for civil and commercial space entities, such as NASA and SpaceX.
Rocket
McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7326-9.5
Delta II was an expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II was part of the Delta rocket family and entered service in 1989. Delta II vehicles included the Delta 6000, and the two later Delta 7000 variants ("Light" and "Heavy"). The rocket flew its final mission ICESat-2 on 15 September 2018, earning the launch vehicle a streak of 100 successful missions in a row, with the last failure being GPS IIR-1 in 1997.
Agency
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947.
