TIM FURNISS / LONDON
Orbital Sciences (OSC) has won contracts worth $60 million from NASA and the US Department of Defense (DoD) to launch one Pegasus and three Minotaur boosters.
A Pegasus XL booster will launch the Spectroscopy and Photometry of the Intergalactic Medium's Diffuse Radiation satellite in 2005. The Minotaur, a converted Minuteman 2 missile, will fly three new launches under the US Air Force's orbital/suborbital OSP 1 programme, starting with the 2004 launch of the DoD's Near-Field Infrared Experiment.
The four-stage Minotaur is based on converted Minuteman 2 first and second stages, plus third and fourth stages from the Pegasus XL, with a common fairing.
Under the OSP programme, the US Air Force contracted for six Minotaur missions a year, beginning in 1999, with options to cover 24 launches to 2004. The original contract was worth $204 million.
Meanwhile, an OSC Pegasus XL booster released from the company's Lockheed L1011 TriStar carrier aircraft successfully launched NASA's $122 million, 315kg (695lb) Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment satellite into a 640km (400 miles) orbit on 25 January, beginning a five-year mission.
Orbital Imaging (Orbimage) plans to launch its OrbView 3 high-resolution imaging satellite aboard a Pegasus booster in April after creditors, including OSC, agreed to allow it to emerge from bankruptcy protection for which it filed in April 2002. The company lost an Orbview satellite in an OSC Taurus booster failure in September 2001.
Source: Flight International
