{"id":12354,"date":"2020-07-14T18:25:59","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T10:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/minotaur-rocket-ready-to-launch-four-payloads-for-u-s-spy-satellite-agency\/"},"modified":"2020-07-14T18:25:59","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T10:25:59","slug":"minotaur-rocket-ready-to-launch-four-payloads-for-u-s-spy-satellite-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/minotaur-rocket-ready-to-launch-four-payloads-for-u-s-spy-satellite-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Minotaur rocket ready to launch four payloads for U.S. spy satellite agency"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Four NRO payloads are enclosed inside the Minotaur 4 rocket\u2019s payload fairing for launch Wednesday from Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: NRO\/Northrop Grumman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four clandestine payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office are awaiting liftoff Wednesday from Wallops Island, Virginia, on a Minotaur 4 rocket powered by Cold War-era missile stages stored for more than 30 years until their conversion into a satellite launcher.<\/p>\n

The solid-fueled Minotaur 4 launcher is scheduled for liftoff from Virginia\u2019s Eastern Shore during a launch window opening at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) Wednesday. The 78-foot-tall (23.8-meter) rocket is expected to fly toward the southeast from the Virginia coast to place the NRO\u2019s four payloads into low Earth orbit hundreds of miles above the planet, but the mission\u2019s exact orbital parameters are classified.<\/p>\n

The four payloads were designed, built and operated by the NRO, officials said, but NRO has not released details about the satellites. The NRO owns the U.S. government\u2019s fleet of optical and radar surveillance satellites that feed information to U.S. intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

The mission Wednesday, designated NROL-129, \u201csupports NRO\u2019s overall national security mission to provide intelligence data to United States\u2019 senior policy makers, the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense,\u201d the NRO wrote in a press kit for the launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team is really excited and ready to get going here on this mission,\u201d said Kurt Eberly, who oversees launch programs at Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor for the Minotaur program.<\/p>\n

The Minotaur rocket family uses retired Minuteman and Peacekeeper missile motors originally built to launch nuclear weapons to targets around the world. The Department of Defense now uses the decommissioned missile parts for satellite launches, and engineers have added upper stages to do the additional work of accelerating payloads to the speeds required to enter orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have successfully launched 26 Minotaur missions with our last Minotaur mission from Wallops in 2013,\u201d said Lt. Col. Ryan Rose, chief of the small launch and targets division at the Space Force\u2019s Space and Missile Systems Center, which procures Minotaur launch services and oversees launch operations for the NRO. \u201cThis will be our first U.S. Space Force mission and the first dedicated NRO mission from Wallops. We look forward to continuing to launch national priority satellites for our NRO partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 26 Minotaur launches since the rocket family\u2019s debut in 2000, 16 have delivered satellites into orbit from launch pads at Wallops Island, Virginia, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and Kodiak Island, Alaska. The other Minotaur flights launched on suborbital trajectories.<\/p>\n

The Minotaur program boasts a 100 percent mission success record to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really focused on making this the tried-and-true small-to-medium launch vehicle for the Air Force, and when they really need to launch when they want it, and it needs to be reliable, then we want to be that provider for the NRO and other DOD agencies,\u201d Eberly said in an interview with Spaceflight Now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what we offer is the ability to get to every orbit that they need from a variety of launch ranges,\u201d Eberly said. \u201cWe\u2019ve launched from Vandenberg, Cape Canaveral, here at Wallops. This will be the seventh out of Wallops. We\u2019ve launched from Kodiak as well. So that just gives us the ability to fit different missions that the NRO and other DOD customers want to execute to different orbits.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent payloads need different processing facilities, and different availability from different ranges,\u201d Eberly said. \u201cSo the ability to launch off of austere launch pads with these all-solid vehicles, it doesn\u2019t take much. It\u2019s really just a launch stool, and then a protected vault for our electrical ground support equipment. I think that\u2019s pretty attractive to the Air Force.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government is paying Northrop Grumman $38 million for the NROL-129 launch. The launch contract for the NROL-129 mission was awarded to Northrop Grumman in 2017 through the military\u2019s Orbital\/Suborbital Program-3 procurement vehicle.<\/p>\n

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The 78-foot-tall (23.8-meter) Minotaur rocket stands on pad 0B at Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: NASA\/Chris Perry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Northrop Grumman crews finished stacking the Minotaur 4 rocket July 2, when they craned the NROL-129 payloads on top of the launcher at pad 0B, which is part of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport run by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority.<\/p>\n

Located at NASA\u2019s Wallops Flight Facility, the spaceport has three launch pads for orbital-class rockets \u2014 one used by the Minotaur family, one for Northrop Grumman\u2019s larger Antares rocket used for resupply missions to the International Space Station, and a new launch complex designed for Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron booster.<\/p>\n

The NRO and Northrop Grumman have not disclosed the duration of the launch window Wednesday. There\u2019s a 90 percent chance of favorable weather for launch Wednesday, according to forecasters at NASA\u2019s Wallops Flight Facility.<\/p>\n

The launch team first stacked the three lower stages of the Minotaur 4 rocket, each coming from stockpiles left over from the Air Force\u2019s retired nuclear-tipped Peacekeeper missiles. On Friday, officials completed a mission dress rehearsal to practice countdown procedures, and officials convened a launch readiness review Monday to give approval for teams to continue with launch preparations.<\/p>\n

The Peacekeeper rocket motors awaiting launch Wednesday were filled with pre-packed solid fuel between 1988 and 1990, then placed on alert in missile silos for 15 years until the military decommissioned the Peacekeeper in 2005, according to Col. Robert Bongiovi, director of the launch enterprise division at the Space and Missile Systems Center.<\/p>\n

The Space Force maintains an \u201cactive aging surveillance program\u201d to ensure decommissioned Peacekeeper and Minuteman missile motors can be made flightworthy in a short time when needed for a satellite launch. The missile motors are stored at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and refurbished there before shipping out for launch preparations.<\/p>\n

Eberly said the three Peacekeeper motors and the Minotaur 4\u2019s fourth stage \u2014 an Orion 38 solid rocket motor produced commercially by Northrop Grumman \u2014 were shipped to Vandenberg for outfitting before they were transported to Wallops for stacking on pad 0B.<\/p>\n

The Peacekeeper motors, designated the SR118, SR119 and SR120, will each fire for about one minute to boost the Minotaur 4 rocket into space. The launcher is expected to begin a coast phase a little more than three minutes after liftoff, then will later ignite the Orion 38 upper stage motor to inject the NROL-129 payloads into orbit.<\/p>\n

Ground teams at Wallops took precautions to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19, Eberly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur workforce takes this seriously,\u201d Eberly said. \u201cThey\u2019re exercising a lot of personal responsibility in their personal time to make sure that they stay safe, follow the guidelines, and stay out of risky situations. So far, knock on wood, we\u2019ve been able to proceed and stay on schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coronavirus pandemic caused Northrop Grumman to re-plan some operations associated with the NROL-129 mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us engineers and management types can be teleworking from home, but the folks that are turning wrenches and running the system testing, and so on, need to be here (at Wallops), and they need to be touching the hardware, and in some instances they need to be in close proximity to each other,\u201d Eberly said.<\/p>\n

During some operations, such as installing ordnance on the rocket, procedures require two or more people within six feet of each other. In those cases, Northrop Grumman ensured the workers wore personal protective equipment, Eberly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve also done some other things like spaced-out operations, and done some remote monitoring, where otherwise we\u2019d have people there in person,\u201d he said. \u201cIt does cause us to have to plan things out further in advance, but hats off to our workforce. We\u2019ve been able to stay on schedule for this launch and a couple other important launches that we\u2019re working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Managers decided not to send as big of a crew to Wallops as would have been deployed to the launch site during normal times. Some of the Minotaur program\u2019s engineers will remain at the company\u2019s launch vehicle division headquarters in Chandler, Arizona, where Northrop Grumman set up a facility for the engineering support team to monitor the countdown and launch in real-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo our engineers, a bunch are staying back there to be monitoring telemetry remotely and able to advise the folks who are in the control rooms here on the base,\u201d Eberly said. \u201cAnd then we spread out the team here. We used to be in one control room, kind of elbow-to-elbow, and now we\u2019re using an additional control room where basically every other console is occupied, so we\u2019re able to be spaced out quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The launch patch for the NROL-129 mission. Credit: NRO\/Northrop Grumman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The launch Wednesday will mark the first flight of a Minotaur rocket since a Minotaur 4 launch from Cape Canaveral in August 2017. Without a waiver, U.S. government policy requires the Minotaur rocket family only be used to launch military and intelligence-gathering satellites.<\/p>\n

The policy is intended to keep government-furnished equipment, such as the retired Peacekeeper stages, from competing with privately-developed rockets in the small satellite launch market.<\/p>\n

The Minotaur 4 rocket can carry payloads of up to 3,814 pounds (1,730 kilograms) into low Earth orbit, according to Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n

The last launch of a Minotaur rocket from Wallops Island was on Nov. 19, 2013, when a Minotaur 1 rocket \u2014 using Minuteman missile motors \u2014 took off with a cluster of small military research and technology demonstration satellites.<\/p>\n

Pad 0B in Virginia has been the starting point for six Minotaur launches \u2014 five using Minotaur 1 rockets based on the Air Force\u2019s Minuteman missile, and one with the Peacekeeper-derived Minotaur 5 booster, which adds a fifth stage on top of the Minotaur 4.<\/p>\n

The Minotaur 4 and 5 rockets can carry heavier payloads than the commercial small satellite launchers developed by Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Firefly Aerospace, Relativity Space, and numerous other firms fueled by venture capital financing.<\/p>\n

Despite the Minotaur rocket\u2019s low flight rate, Eberly said he thinks the program \u201cfills a niche that is not really addressed very much for U.S. launchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe (Europe\u2019s) Vega is something similar in the international market, but the ability to launch two metric tons to low Earth orbit isn\u2019t well-served, and I think a lot of space vehicles, and the kinds of new space vehicles that the NRO and others are producing, they just can\u2019t always be served by the by the really small end of launch market,\u201d Eberly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s where we can come in and offer a very dependable ride on a schedule, wherever they need us, and fill that bigger niche for payloads that just aren\u2019t going to fit on a smaller vehicle, and they may not want to be on a rideshare, where you\u2019re not able to drive the schedule, or if it\u2019s a classified payload, you don\u2019t want to be in a rideshare on a bigger vehicle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I think the dedicated launch aspect is very attracted to the NRO, where they can get just what they want. They can tailor the mission just the way they want, and then we can provide that service to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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

Four NRO payloads are enclosed inside the Minotaur 4 rocket\u2019s payload fairing for launch Wednesday from Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: NRO\/Northrop Grumman Four clandestine payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office are awaiting liftoff Wednesday from Wallops Island, Virginia, on a Minotaur 4 rocket powered by Cold War-era missile stages stored for more than 30 years […]<\/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":[25,2166,1698,257,2167,1139,848,554],"class_list":["post-12354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-launch","tag-launch-pad-0b","tag-mid-atlantic-regional-spaceport","tag-military-space","tag-minotaur","tag-minotaur-4","tag-national-reconnaissance-office","tag-northrop-grumman"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12354"}],"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=12354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}