The Orbital Sciences-built Pegasus XL rocket that will launch a NASA satellite spaceward later today carries a special emblem to honor the victims of last week’s Virginia Tech shootings, according to mission managers.

NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite will head for orbit at about 4:23 p.m. EDT (2023 GMT, or 1:23 p.m. Local Time) with the emblem of Blacksburg, Virginia’s Virginia Tech university affixed to its air-launched Pegasus booster.

“We will be flying the Virginia Tech logo on the side of the Pegasus rocket in honor and memory of those who lost their lives there,” said James Russell, AIM principal investigator at Virginia’s Hampton University, Tuesday.

Thirty-two people were shot and killed, and others wounded, at Virginia Tech on April 16 by student Seung-Hui Cho, who then killed himself.

The AIM mission’s deputy principal investigator, Scott Bailey, is an assistant professor with the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech.

“We wanted to honor their contribution to this particular mission,” Bryan Baldwin, Pegasus launch vehicle program director for Orbital Science, said Tuesday.

NASA’s AIM mission will be air-launched from Orbital Science’s Stargazer L-1011 carrier aircraft in a space shot to be staged from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The piano-sized spacecraft is designed to spend two years studying the origins and behavior of odd noctilucent - or ‘night shining’ - clouds, which form at the very edge of space over Earth’s poles and can only be seen by ground observers after sunset.

Click here for live launch coverage of NASA’s AIM mission.