The Minotaur I, or just Minotaur is an American
expendable launch system derived from the
Minuteman II missile.
It is used to launch
small satellites for the
US Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
, and is a member of the
Minotaur
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur ( , ;. grc, ; in Latin as ''Minotaurus'' ) is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "p ...
family of rockets produced by
Orbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...
(now
Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tech ...
).
Vehicle
The Minotaur I is the follow-on to the Orbital Sciences'
Taurus (later re-named the "Minotaur-C"
) launch vehicle, combining the original Taurus's booster stage with a second stage from a
Minuteman missile.
Minotaur I rockets consist of the
M55A1 first stage and
SR19 second stage of a decommissioned Minuteman missile.
The
Orion 50XL and
Orion 38
Orion is a series of American solid-fuel rocket stages, developed and manufactured by a joint venture between Hercules Aerospace and Alliant Techsystems (now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems). They were originally developed for use as all ...
, from the
Pegasus rocket, are used as third and fourth stages. A HAPS (Hydrazine Auxiliary Propulsion System) upper stage can also be flown if greater precision is needed, or the rocket needs to be able to manoeuvre to deploy multiple payloads.
It can place up to of payload into a
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...
at 28.5 degrees of
inclination
Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object.
For a satellite orbiting the Ea ...
.
The Minotaur I is 69 feet tall and 5 feet wide.
Initially Minotaur I launches are conducted from
Space Launch Complex 8 at the
Vandenberg Air Force Base. Starting with the launch of
TacSat-2 in December 2006, launches have also been conducted from
Pad 0B at the
Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on
Wallops Island.
[
]
Launch history
There have been twelve launches of the Minotaur I, all successful.
See also
* Comparison of orbital launchers families
* Comparison of orbital launch systems
References
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Minotaur (rocket family)
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