SpaceWorld’s last airworthy Lockheed L-1011 returns to the skies with local flight in Mojave
The only remaining airworthy Lockheed L-1011 TriStar returned to flight on Tuesday, January 13, performing a local mission from Mojave, California. The aircraft, known as Stargazer, was tracked during the flight by FlightRadar24, confirming its continued operational status more than five decades after its first entry into service.
The L-1011, registered N140SC and operated by Northrop Grumman, carried out a short sortie in the Mojave area, marking one of its periodic flights in recent years. Although the aircraft has not supported an orbital launch mission since 2021, it continues to fly on test and research-related operations for undisclosed customers.
Stargazer is a Lockheed L-1011-100 built in 1974 and originally delivered to Air Canada. The airframe was acquired in the early 1990s by Orbital Sciences, later part of Northrop Grumman, and extensively modified to serve as the carrier aircraft for the Pegasus air-launched orbital rocket. The aircraft conducted its first Pegasus mission in 1994 and went on to support dozens of launches from sites in the United States and abroad.
Over its operational life as a launch platform, Stargazer became a central element of the Pegasus program, which enabled small satellites to be deployed into orbit without the need for a traditional ground-based launch. Although Pegasus launches have become increasingly infrequent in the past decade, Northrop Grumman has stated that both the rocket and the carrier aircraft remain flight-ready.
Stargazer is widely regarded as the last TriStar still capable of flight. The type was powered by Rolls-Royce RB211 engines and featured advanced systems for its era, but production challenges, cost overruns and shifting market conditions led Lockheed to exit the commercial aviation sector after the program ended in the early 1980s.
First flown in 1970, the L-1011 TriStar was one of three widebody developed at the dawn of long-haul mass air travel, alongside the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Boeing 747. Despite its technical sophistication, the program failed to achieve commercial success, marking Lockheed’s final chapter as a manufacturer of commercial airliners.
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