On October 11, 2019 at 00:31 UTC, the US “Stargazer” aircraft (a modified L-1011 jetliner) took off from the Skid Strip airfield at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Northrop Grumman's Pegasus XL rocket was carried aloft by the Stargazer aircraft to approximately 40 000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, around 160 kilometers east-northeast of Cape Canaveral where it was released and free-falls five seconds before igniting its first-stage rocket engine at 01:59 UTC. The “Pegasus XL” rocket orbited the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite.