Dec 5 1998
From The Space Library
A modified L-1011 jetliner flying at 40,000 feet (12,000 meters) dropped a Pegasus XL rocket carrying the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS), designed to study the formation of stars and planets. The launch marked the beginning of a two-year, US$64 million mission to learn more about the "composition of interstellar clouds and monitor how they cool as they collapse to form stars and planets." The 397-pound (179-kilogram) SWAS would study water, molecular oxygen, atomic carbon, and isotopic carbon monoxide, by means of submillimeter wave radiation, which scientists cannot observe from the ground. NASA's GSFC managed the mission.
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