Orbital "Stargazer" L-1011 Carrier Aircraft

Orbital "Stargazer" L-1011 Carrier Aircraft
Originally uploaded by nekosoft

Although little from the outside distinguishes this plane from the thousands landing at your local airport, this is actually a platform for launching rockets into space.

Orbital Sciences Corporation uses the Stargazer as a air-launch vehicle for Pegasus rockets. There have been 32 successful Pegasus launches from the Stargazer, the most notable being the April 21, 1997 flight that carried a portion of the remains of Timothy Leary and Gene Roddenberry into orbit.

Appropriately, the name "Stargazer" is a Star Trek reference: prior to their assignments to the Enterprise, Picard and Riker served on the Stargazer and the Pegasus, respectively.

The next scheduled mission for this aircraft is launching a Pegasus rocket containing an X-Ray telescope.



Here's what the Stargazer looks like from space.


The airplane on ABC's Lost is a dismantled L-1011.