Weather forecasters predict favorable conditions for the launch.
The mission will be staged from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Southeastern Virgina. Orbital ferried the L-1011 and rocket to the launch site from the Pegasus home base at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on Tuesday. Engineers will use the days leading up to the launch by performing a final round of tests with the rocket and payload. Pegasus is slated to deliver the new craft into a circular orbit 512 miles above the Earth, inclined 45 degrees to either side of the equator. However, officials scrapped that idea in favor of Wallops so the new satellites would be placed into a higher inclination orbit, which would improve service to customers in higher latitude regions of the globe.