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Minotaur rocket adds two launches to manifest BY JUSTIN RAY SPACEFLIGHT NOW Posted: May 25, 2006 Two experimental U.S. military satellites will be launched aboard a pair of Orbital Sciences-prepared Minotaur 1 rockets over the next year-and-a-half, the Air Force has announced.
The vehicle uses decommissioned first and second stages from Minuteman 2 ICBM missiles and solid-propellant motors from the commercial Pegasus rocket program for its third and fourth stages. Two Minotaurs have been ordered to loft the Air Force Research Laboratory's TacSat 2 and TacSat 3 satellites. The first is scheduled for November; the second will follow in September 2007, according to a Space and Missile Systems Center Detachment 12 spokesperson. Cost of the two launches, including the rockets, satellite integration and Range services, totals $36 million, the spokesperson said. "Money has only just recently become available to purchase the rockets. The Minotaur 1 was selected for TacSat 2 because there were sufficient rocket components already on hand to enable a launch this year," the spokesperson added. "We are very excited about meeting the challenging six month contract-to-launch goal that the Air Force has set for us on the TacSat 2 mission," said Ron Grabe, Orbital Sciences' executive vice president and general manager of its Launch Systems Group. "We are also pleased to be able to offer the Air Force exceptional value for these two critical missions that will be carried out within a one-year period aboard our proven and reliable Minotaur 1 launch vehicle. This selection serves as a testament to our demonstrated track record of success in terms of technical, schedule and cost performance. We have already assembled our launch team for the TacSat 2 mission and are looking forward to conducting the second Minotaur 1 launch of 2006." The most recent Minotaur, launched in April from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, deployed six spacecraft for a joint Taiwan-U.S. atmospheric research project. The TacSat spacecraft will employ advanced technologies to demonstrate their ability to support the U.S. military from space. |
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As night fell over Kennedy Space Center on May 19, space shuttle Discovery reached launch pad 39B to complete the slow journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building. Discovery will be traveling much faster in a few weeks when it blasts off to the International Space Station.
The November 1985 flight of space shuttle Atlantis began with a rare nighttime blastoff. The seven-member crew, including a Mexican payload specialist, spent a week in orbit deploying three communications satellites for Australia, Mexico and the U.S. And a pair of high-visibility spacewalks were performed to demonstrate techniques for building large structures in space. The crew narrates the highlights of STS-61B in this post-flight crew film presentation.
Eight astronauts, the largest crew in history, spent a week in space during the fall of 1985 aboard shuttle Challenger for mission STS-61A, the first flight dedicated to the German Spacelab. The crew worked in the Spacelab D-1 laboratory conducting a range of experiments, including a quick-moving sled that traveled along tracks in the module. A small satellite was ejected from a canister in the payload bay as well. The astronauts narrate the highlights of the mission in this post-flight film.
Perched atop a trailer-like transporter, space shuttle Discovery was moved May 12 from its hangar to the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building for mating to its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters in preparation for the STS-121 mission.
The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame inducted its 2006 class of shuttle commanders Henry Hartsfield, Brewster Shaw and Charles Bolden. The ceremony was held inside the Saturn 5 museum at Kennedy Space Center.