The JAWSAT payload seen attached to the OSPSLV rocket before the fairing was installed. Photo: Spaceport Systems International

Workers plan to remove the top half of the maiden U.S. Air Force Minotaur rocket today to repair faulty electronics that have stalled the launch of several research satellites.

Nicknamed Minotaur and officially called the Orbital Suborbital Program Space Launch Vehicle, the booster is a combination rocket that uses the first two stages of a Minuteman 2 missile and two stages from a Pegasus rocket.

The rocket was scheduled for liftoff this week from the Commercial Launch Facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but the mission was postponed following a mission dress rehearsal last week.

During the test, the onboard C-band transponder and the Modular Avionics Control Hardware, or MACH, failed to work properly. The transponder is used to track the rocket during launch and the MACH controls telemetry, power and ordnance commands on the vehicle.

To fix the problems, the rocket's third and fourth stages, along with the payloads enclosed within the protective nose cone, will be disconnected from the rest of Minotaur and moved to a processing building today. High winds delayed the planned move on Tuesday.

Engineers will have to replace the C-band transponder and troubleshoot the still mysterious MACH problem. Both units are located in the rocket's avionics section between the fourth stage and satellite payload. That area cannot be accessed at the launch pad, forcing the trip to the processing facility, U.S. Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Colleen Lehne said.

The U.S. Air Force has not set a launch date for the mission, but the rocket won't fly before next year, Lehne said.

Minotaur will carry into space the Joint Air Force Academy-Weber State University, or JAWSAT, multi-payload adapter.

JAWSAT will haul four separate microsatellites into orbit and then release them.

The first to separate will be Arizona State University's ASUSAT, followed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Optical Calibration Sphere Experiment, Stanford University's OPAL satellite and finally the U.S. Air Force Academy's FalconSat.

Later in the launch, JAWSAT will be jettisoned from the rocket's fourth stage.

JAWSAT will circle the Earth with two permanently attached experiments. They are the Plasma Experiment Satellite sponsored by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Weber State University's Attitude Controlled Platform.