23-03-2007, 11:14
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חבר מתאריך: 12.11.06
הודעות: 75
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השיטה ה"אמריקאית"
Minotaur
[התמונה הבאה מגיעה מקישור שלא מתחיל ב https ולכן לא הוטמעה בדף כדי לשמור על https תקין: http://www.orbital.com/images/osp.jpg] For the U.S. Air Force's Orbital/Suborbital Program (OSP) we have developed the low-cost, four-stage Space Launch Vehicle (SLV) Minotaur rocket using a combination of U.S. government-supplied Minuteman II motors and proven Orbital space launch technologies.
The Minuteman rocket motors serve as the vehicle's first and second stages, efficiently reusing motors that have been decommissioned as a result of arms reduction treaties. Minotaur's third and fourth stages, structures and payload fairing are common with our highly reliable Pegasus XL rocket. Its capabilities have been enhanced with the addition of improved avionics systems, including our Modular Avionics Control Hardware (MACH), which is used on many of our suborbital launch vehicles.
Minotaur made its inaugural flight in January 2000, successfully delivering a number of small military and university satellites into orbit and marking the first-ever use of residual U.S. Government Minuteman boosters in a space launch vehicle. Since then, Minotaur has extended its 100% success record with the launches of:- Mightysat in July 2000 and XSS-11 in April 2005, both technology demonstration satellites for the Air Force Research Laboratory
- STP-R1 in September 2005 for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC, a constellation of six remote-sensing microsatellites, in April 2006, for the National Space Organization of Taiwan
- TacSat-2 for the Air Force Research Laboratory and Genesat-1 for the NASA AMES Research Center in December 2006
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