Will Try Again Wednesday

NASA planned on launching its Space Technology Five mission Tuesday... but alas, Mother Nature has other plans. Instead, NASA's launch of three small satellites designed to test the limits of technology will blast off Wednesday.

The Space Technology Five mission -- ST-5 for short -- is designed to test microsatellite technology in tracking space weather -- specifically, the strength of electrical currents in the ionosphere.

Earth weather, however, isn't cooperating, and initial launch forecasts showed only a 20 percent chance the mission would actually get off the ground. On Wednesday, the forecast is much better -- with only a 20 percent chance that weather will once again conspire to postpone the launch.

The three ST-5 satellites -- each no bigger than a portable television -- will conduct six different technology tests. The satellites will be launched from a Lockheed L-10-11 flying at 39,000 feet; the Lockheed will drop-launch a Pegasus missile (above), which will then boost the satellites into space.

If the project is successful in demonstrating that a number of small satellites can be networked together to act like one big satellite, we could see the day when a hundred or more satellites monitor the weather at one time.

FMI: www.nasa.gov