Minotaur C launches ten small commercial satellites as it is allowed to

by | Nov 3, 2017 | Launches, Seradata News

While Minotaur launch vehicles are not normally allowed to launch commercial space satellites, the Minotaur C, which is actually a variant of Taurus launch vehicle using commercially available solid rocket stages, is allowed to. As such, a Minotaur C-XL (3210) was successfully launched from the Vandenberg launch site on the coast of California on its way to a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit (LEO). The launch took place at 2137 GMT on 31 October 2017.

Aboard were ten satellites. Six were 110 kg Skysat commercial Earth observation satellites as part of a 24 satellite constellation owned and operated as well as being built by Planet using an SSL-designed bus. Four 5 kg 3U CubeSat-class Flock 3M Dove satellites for Earth observation also owned and operated as well as being built by Planet. All the satellites were deployed successfully.

Comment by David Todd:  Orbital ATK was a little naughty to rebrand the latest variant of its very unreliable Taurus rocket series Minotaur-C.  It compounded this trick (which, by the way, also caught out your correspondent for a time) by claiming that the launch was the latest successful flight of the Minotaur series which has a 100% success rate. Still, at least this flight flew successfully.

Minotaur-C launch. Courtesy: Orbital ATK

 

About Seradata

Seradata produce the renowned Seradata database. Trusted by over 100 of the world’s leading Space organisations, Seradata is a fully queryable database used for market analysis, failure/risk assessment, spectrum analysis and space situational awareness (SSA).

For more information go to https://www.seradata.com/product/

Related Articles

Categories

Archives

Tags

nasaspacexecoreviewsissesaArianespacevideochinaFalcon 9v1.2FT Block 525virgin galacticULAfalcon 9RoscosmosevaDGAspacewalkaviation weekaressoyuzIGTInternational Space StationRocket LabBeidouawardsBlue OriginStarlinkspaceSatellite broadcastingrussiamoonboeingAirbus DSISROCargo Return VehicleresearchOneWebmarsblogspaceshiptwojaxaorionmarsimpactdelayhyperbolaEutelsatdemocratrocketlunarhypertextobamagoogle lunar prizelaunchVegabarack obamaconstellationSEStourismnorthfiguresthales alenia spacespaceflightnode 2fundedIntelsatRaymond Lygo2009Lockheed MartinExpress MD-2Elon MuskAtlas Vromess2dassault aviationaviationLucy2008wk2sstlukradiomissilesuborbitaldocking portexplorationAriane 5 ECAVirgin OrbittestinternetLong March 2D/2sts-122Ariane 5Northrop GrummanSLSChina Manned Space EngineeringElectronflightspace tourism2010cotsnewspapermissile defensegalileospaceportExpress AMU 1Long March 4Cbuildspace stationaltairsoyuz 2-1aProton Minternational astronautical congressshuttlespace shuttleEuropean Space AgencyLauncherOneCosmosIntelsat 23scaled compositesnew yorkrulesAriane 6hanleybudgetatvVietnamshenzhoucongressMojaveboldenLong March 2COrbital ATKInmarsatcnesnew shepardiaclunar landerGuiana Space CenterkscApollolawsSpace Systems/LoralUK Space AgencyLong March 4BKuaizhou 1AILSprotonUS Air ForceTalulah RileydarpaElectron KSFalcon 9v1.2 Block 5Vega CeuAstriumSkylonpicturebaseusaastronautdragonlanderfiveeventTelesatNorth KoreaSSLAprilSNC50thinterviewLong MarchSea LaunchfalconWednesdaycustomerlinkatlantissuccessor