Orbital Sciences Corporation provides the spacecraft bus and will provide observatory Integration and Testing at its Dulles Facility. The AIM observatory will be shipped to the Vandenberg Air Force Base and integrated as the primary payload aboard a Pegasus XL launch vehicle.

An Orbital airplane carries the Pegasus launch vehicle.

Pending availability of the required spectrum licenses, AIM plans to use the Honeywell Datalynx PF1 11-m antenna at Poker Flat Alaska and the Kongsberg 11-m SKS antenna in Svalbard, Norway for space-to-ground communications. Wallops will be baselined for contingency operations, using the 11-m and 9-m systems. Mission operations will be performed by CU/LASP. AIM data will be analyzed and prepared for public archiving by Hampton University with the assistance of GATS Inc. The data archive itself will be provided by the NSSDC and made available to the public through the Internet.