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NASA'S High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager,
or HESSI, lifted off February 5, 2002
from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. at 2:29 p.m. EST. During
its planned two-year mission HESSI will study the secrets of how solar flares
are produced in the Sun's atmosphere.
The spacecraft was carried
approximately 113 nautical miles east-southeast of the Cape to an altitude of
about 39,000 feet. The Pegasus drop occurred at 3:56 p.m. EST, and after a short
powered sequence, delivered the 645-pound HESSI spacecraft into a circular orbit
373 miles above the Earth, inclined at 38 degrees to the equator.
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