Mission Reports

Three classified small satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office fired into orbit from the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tuesday, riding a Northrop Grumman Minotaur 1 booster with a surplus military missile first stage made in 1966, likely the oldest rocket part ever used on a space launch.

A Minotaur 1 rocket derived from a decommissioned ballistic missile took off at 9:35 a.m. EDT (1335 GMT) Tuesday from Wallops Island, Virginia, after a weather delay of more than two-and-a-half hours. The four-stage, solid-fueled rocket carried three payloads into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office.

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.

A Minotaur 1 rocket powered by a surplus Cold War-era missile stage more than 54 years old is poised to blast off from the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tuesday morning, heading to orbit with three top secret spacecraft for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

A Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket dropped from the belly of a carrier jet over the Pacific Ocean early Sunday and streaked into orbit with a small U.S. military space surveillance satellite named Odyssey, demonstrating a rapid launch capability in partnership with a secretive new Space Force special projects unit.

China launched four small satellites June 10 on a Long March 2D rocket, beginning Earth observation, asteroid monitoring, and technology demonstration missions.

An unidentified enthusiast bid an astronomical $28 million Saturday to win an on-line auction for a seat aboard a New Shepard spacecraft and a chance to make history next month, joining rocket owner and Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos for a commercial flight to space.

A small U.S. military satellite named Odyssey, designed and built in less than a year by a secretive new Space Force special projects unit, is set to launch early Sunday from an aircraft off the coast of California aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket.

The sharp-eyed camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted China’s Zhurong rover on the Red Planet, showing the craft next so its landing platform, with pieces of its heat shield and parachute nearby.