A team of industrial and military engineers have designed afix to the issue grounding the new Minotaur 4 rocket, but an $800 million spacetracking satellite waiting for launch could be shuffled behind other payloadsin the Air Force manifest.
The Minotaur 4 has at leasteight missions on the books, but the vehicle's maiden flight has faced severaldelays stemming from problems with satellites and rocket issues.
The latest issue concerns the rocket's third stage, a solid-fueledmotor taken from the military's stockpile of Peacekeeper missiles.Furnished by the government, the third stage's thrust vector control steeringsystem exhaust produces "unintended thrust which would cause issues inflight," according to a spokesperson at the Air Force Space and MissileSystems Center.
"This will decrease the unintended thrust and mitigateany issues in flight," an Air Force spokesperson said.
The issue affects all Minotaur 4 vehicles, but the Air Forcemay revamp the rocket's manifest and delay launchof the first Space Based Space Surveillance satellite until the third quarterof this year.
The first Minotaur 4 mission may now fly from Kodiak Island,Alaska, with a cache of small military, NASA and university satellites managedby the Air Force's Space Test Program. That launch is still officiallyscheduled for May 28.
The Pentagon's TacSat 4 technology demonstration satelliteis also awaiting a ride to orbit on the Minotaur 4 rocket.
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