{"id":11603,"date":"2021-06-20T21:51:23","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T13:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/photos-surplus-missile-motor-from-1960s-launches-classified-nro-satellites\/"},"modified":"2021-06-20T21:51:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T13:51:23","slug":"photos-surplus-missile-motor-from-1960s-launches-classified-nro-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/photos-surplus-missile-motor-from-1960s-launches-classified-nro-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Surplus missile motor from 1960s launches classified NRO satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Cold War-era missile motor cast with solid propellant in 1966 fired up for the first time Wednesday to catapult a Northrop Grumman Minotaur 1 rocket off a launch pad in Virginia with three small spacecraft for the U.S. government\u2019s spy satellite agency.<\/p>\n

The Minotaur 1 rocket uses two surplus stages taken from the U.S. Air Force\u2019s stockpiles of Minuteman 2 ballistic missiles. Northrop Grumman adds avionics, a payload compartment, and two solid-fueled upper stages to convert the missile parts into a satellite launcher.<\/p>\n

The 69-foot-tall (21-meter) rocket took off from pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia at 9:35 a.m. EDT (1335 GMT) Wednesday, June 15. The rocket\u2019s solid-fueled first stage quickly ramped up to full power, producing more than 200,000 pounds of thrust to accelerate the Minotaur 1 past the speed of sound in less than 30 seconds.<\/p>\n

Heading southeast over the Atlantic Ocean, the Minotaur 1 rocket fired three more solid motors to inject three classified satellites into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office.<\/p>\n

These photos show the Minotaur 1 blasting off from the spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. The yellow material peeling off the rocket at liftoff, sometimes called the \u201cbanana,\u201d is a thermal cover designed to regulate temperatures for the Minuteman-heritage solid rocket motors while on the launch pad.<\/p>\n

Read our full story for more details on the mission.<\/p>\n

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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Cold War-era missile motor cast with solid propellant in 1966 fired up for the first time Wednesday to catapult a Northrop Grumman Minotaur 1 rocket off a launch pad in Virginia with three small spacecraft for the U.S. government\u2019s spy satellite agency. The Minotaur 1 rocket uses two surplus stages taken from the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11603"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}