/sci/ - Science & Math

Pegasus is actually kind of a cool rocket with neat history.

>Orbital Sciences founded in 1982 by three Harvard grads with funding from a Texas banker
>Win a NASA contract to launch 8 Orbcomm satellites in 1985
>Invest $100 million (current $$$) into developing an air launched rocket
>Hire Hercules Aerospace to build the solid propellant while Orbital makes the actual vehicle
>NASA loans a B-52 for early carry tests with the Pegasus
>1990: First launch of Pegasus. All goes well. Astronaut Gordon Fullerton pilots the B-52 for the drop.
>Pegasus becomes the first private Orbital launcher ever
>Pegasus proceeds to dominate the small launch market until Falcon 9 takes hold, 25 freaking years later.
Pegasus would go on to launch dozens of satellites, including:
>IBEX (an interstellar gas telescope), >Orbcomm’s initial satellite constellation
>TRACE and RHESSI (solar telescopes)
>GALEX (UV Telescope)
>NuStar (X Ray telescope)

Pegasus was a revolutionary thing at the time which has sadly shown it’s age. But it’s interesting how Orbital Sciences Corporation was the first true “Space startup” - they just BECAME OldSpace over time
>1990 - Orbital goes public
>2000’s - Orbital wins military contracts to build ICBMs
>2007 - Orbital builds the Dawn mission to ceres (for NASA)
>2008 - Orbital wins a CRS contract to fly Antares and Cygnus to the ISS
>2014 - Orbital merges with ATK to form Orbital ATK
>2018 - Orbital ATK is absorbed by Northrop Grumman

Once again, Pegasus and Orbital have an incredible history, but a series of decisions the latter made ended up diminishing their “agile” startup nature. In another life, they could have become the SpaceX of the 90’s. But today, they are a subset of Northrop Grumman, and only two more Pegasus rockets remain, both of them lacking a customer