United Launch Alliance capped 2009 with the launch of a Delta II carrying NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft at 6:09 a.m. PST, on Thursday, December the 17th. Rocketing from Space Launch Complex-2, the launch was the eighth Delta II of 2009 and represents the 37th successful mission launched by United Launch Alliance in its first 36 months of operation.

WISE will scan the entire sky using an infrared telescope with sensitivity hundreds of times greater than ever before possible, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images. The mission will uncover objects never seen, including the coolest stars, the universe’s most luminous galaxies and some of the darkest near-Earth asteroids and comets. For the WISE mission, the spacecraft was launched on a Delta II 7320-10C configuration vehicle featuring a ULA first stage booster powered by a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-27A main engine and three Alliant Techsystems (ATK) strap-on solid rocket motors. An Aerojet AJ10-118K engine powered the second stage. The payload was encased by a 10-foot-diameter composite payload fairing.