{"id":11615,"date":"2021-06-15T01:09:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T17:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/photos-minotaur-1-rocket-stands-on-launch-pad-in-virginia\/"},"modified":"2021-06-15T01:09:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T17:09:07","slug":"photos-minotaur-1-rocket-stands-on-launch-pad-in-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/photos-minotaur-1-rocket-stands-on-launch-pad-in-virginia\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Minotaur 1 rocket stands on launch pad in Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clad in a yellow thermal blanket that will peel away at liftoff, a 69-foot-tall (21-meter) Minotaur 1 rocket is standing on a launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, ready to deliver three small National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft to orbit.<\/p>\n

The four-stage, solid-fueled rocket is set for liftoff from pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport run by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority. The spaceport is co-located with NASA\u2019s Wallops Flight Facility, which runs the launch range.<\/p>\n

Pad 0B is positioned about a quarter-mile (400 meters) south of pad 0A, the base for Antares rocket launches to resupply the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

The Minotaur 1 rocket\u2019s two lower stages are surplus motors taken from stockpiles of decommissioned Minuteman ballistic missiles. The yellow thermal blanket, sometimes called the \u201cbanana,\u201d will rapidly peel off the rocket in sections when the first stage ignites to power the Minotaur 1 off the pad with more than 200,000 pounds of thrust.<\/p>\n

The rocket is fitted with a 61-inch-diameter (1.55-meter) payload shroud, which will protect the three NRO spy satellite payloads during the first few minutes of flight through the atmosphere. The fairing will jettison after the Minotaur 1 reaches space.<\/p>\n

See our Mission Status Center for more coverage of the NROL-111 mission.<\/p>\n

These photos were taken June 10 during a mission dress rehearsal, when the mobile gantry at the launch pad was rolled back to reveal the Minotaur 1 rocket.<\/p>\n

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A Minotaur 1 rocket stands on pad 0B during a mission dress rehearsal June 10. Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A Northrop Grumman Minotaur 1 rocket stands on pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia. The rocket is scheduled to launch on the NROL-111 mission Tuesday. Credit: National Reconnaissance Office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: National Reconnaissance Office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Alex Polimeni \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: National Reconnaissance Office<\/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
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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

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

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

Clad in a yellow thermal blanket that will peel away at liftoff, a 69-foot-tall (21-meter) Minotaur 1 rocket is standing on a launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, ready to deliver three small National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft to orbit. The four-stage, solid-fueled rocket is set for liftoff from pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport […]<\/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-11615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615"}],"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=11615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}