[Launch Alert] Minotaur Launch Scheduled

[Brian Webb]

                             LAUNCH ALERT

			            Brian Webb
		         Ventura County, California
		         E-mail: kd6nrp at earthlink.net
	         Web Site: http://www.spacearchive.info

				             2005 April 7 (Thursday) 18:16 PDT
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                      MINOTAUR LAUNCH SCHEDULED
                     Vandenberg AFB News Release

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - Team Vandenberg is set to launch a
Minotaur rocket Monday from Space Launch Complex-8 on South
Vandenberg. The launch window is from 6:34 a.m. to 7 a.m.

30th Space Wing Commander Col. Frank Gallegos will be the spacelift
commander, or final go for launch authority, for Monday’s launch.

The XSS-11 micro-satellite demonstrates a new class of low-cost
satellites. This satellite can offer affordable platforms to
demonstrate key capabilities such as autonomous mission planning,
rendezvous and proximity operations and other enabling technologies.
The objective is to demonstrate and evaluate the maturity and
readiness of several hardware and software technologies needed to
provide more cost effective, more easily operated, small spacecraft
for a wide variety of possible future Air Force space operations.

The Minotaur rocket is a ground-based variant of the Orbital Sciences
Corp. air-launched Pegasus rocket. It is capable of launching up to
3,000 pounds into a low-Earth orbit and up to 800 pounds into
geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Minotaur has had two successful launches that have delivered five
satellites into orbit.

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