Classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.
Geoff Barrett is an independent graphic artist that creates launch infographics for space flight events.
The Minotaur I launch system is derived from converted Minuteman II ICBMs and is used to launch small satellites for the US Government. The first and second stages, taken directly from decommissioned Minuteman missiles, are mated to the Orion third and fourth stages taken from the Pegasus XL air-launched rocket family. An optional hydrazine-powered fifth stage called HAPS can be used.The Minotaur I launch system is derived from converted Minuteman II ICBMs and is used to launch small satellites for the US Government. An optional hydrazine-powered fifth stage called HAPS can be used.
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’s spy s…
The small rockets are not cheap, but they are effective.
A Northrop Grumman Minotaur 1 launched three National Reconnaissance Office payloads on June 15 at 9:35 a.m. Eastern from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Clad in a yellow thermal blanket that will peel away at liftoff, a 69-foot-tall Minotaur 1 rocket is standing on a launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, ready to deliver three small National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft to orbit.
Northrop Grumman launched three national security payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) on the NROL-111 mission. The company used their solid propellant Minotaur I rocket to place the payloads into a low Earth orbit with a …
Soyuz MS-24 carried two cosmonauts and one astronaut to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in K…
Third flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying a payload for the US Department of Defense.
A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Classified space situational awareness (SSA) payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
3 Chinese reconnaissance satellites of unknown purposes, officially reported as for "Electromagnetic environment probing" purposes.
A batch of 22 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Third commercial Virgin Galactic mission.
X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), formerly the X-Ray Astronomy Recovery Mission (XARM), is a replacement for the Hitomi satellite that …
The Yaogan 33-03 is a Chinese military “remote sensing” satellite of unknown purpose.
4 small satellites for LEO Internet of Things (IoT) communication purposes.