Riding aboard a Pegasus XL Rocket. NASA's TERRIERS satellite was launched from
Vandenberg Air Force Base. CA. on May 17. 1999. After being dropped from the belly
of an L-1011 Stargazer aircraft at an altitude of 39.000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.
the Pegasus rocket carried the TERRIERS satellite into its polar orbit.
TERRIERS is short for Tomographic Experiment using Radiative Recombinative
Ionospheric Extreme ultraviolet and Radio Sources.
The TERRIERS satellite mission was designed to study the ionosphere the electrically
charged portion of the Earth's upper atmosphere. TERRIERS would have created the
first 3D images of the ionosphere. However. the spacecraft failed to target its solar
panels towards the Sun. and ran out of battery power shortly after launch.