Longitude: -78.50 deg. Latitude: 29.00 deg.
Brazil's SCD-2 satellite was aboard Orbital Science's L-1011 Stargazer aircraft when it took off from the Cape Canaveral Air Station's Skid Strip (Runway 02/20, 28.2N 80.6W) at 23:05 GMT on Oct 22 and flew to the drop zone near Cape Canaveral (in the Mayport, Florida, Warning Area) at 29.0N 78.3W. The Pegasus ignited 5 seconds after drop. The first stage carried a NASA experiment attached to its right wing, to study hypersonic boundary layer separation. The 115 kg Satelite de Coleta de Dados (Data Collection Satellite) relays data from environmental monitoring stations. Air dropped in Mayport DZ.
HESSI, the sixth Small Explorer, carried a rotating modulation collimator transform telescope, imaging solar flares in the hard X-ray spectrum. The launch marked the return to flight of Pegasus after the Hyper-X failure. The launch was originally to have occurred on 28 March 2001. The L-1011 launch aircraft took off at 19:29 GMT from the Cape Canaveral Skid Strip RW30/12, and headed out to the drop area at 28.0 N 78.5 W over the Atlantic. Drop of the Pegasus in the Atlantic Drop Zone at 28.0 N 78.5 W was at 20:58 GMT, with ignition 5 seconds later. The Pegasus reached orbit at 21:07 GMT. On the first pass it was confirmed that the solar panels had opened.
The satellite rotated at 15 rpm, imaging by reconstructing the Fourier components from the time modulation of the solar x-ray flux through a set of 9 grids each 9 cm in diameter. It was expected to make images with a resolution of 2 arcseconds at 40 keV energies and 36 arcseconds at 1 MeV energies. The launch delays meant that HESSI missed some of the best flares at solar max. Air dropped in Mayport DZ.
Ultraviolet space telescope. Much delayed launch (from January 19, May 19, July 16, 21 and 30, August 14 and October 17, 2002; January 27, March 25 and 30, April 15 and 26 2003). It was finally switched off on 28 June 2013, following an extra tenth year of observing funded by Caltech. Air dropped in Mayport DZ.