NASA: Ready to explore outer solar system

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- The first U.S. spacecraft designed to explore the extreme outer solar system is ready for launch.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the Interstellar Boundary Explorer -- or IBEX -- spacecraft will image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind reaches the cold expanse of space.

The two-year mission will begin Oct. 19 when the spacecraft is launched from an aircraft flying above the Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA said IBEX will conduct extremely high-altitude orbits above the Earth to investigate and capture images of processes taking place at the interstellar boundary, the region where the solar system meets outer space.

IBEX will be launched from a Pegasus rocket dropped from under the wing of an L-1011 aircraft flying over the Pacific Ocean, NASA said. The Pegasus will carry the spacecraft approximately 130 miles above Earth and into orbit.