Orbital Sciences is completing final preparations for the third mission of its ground-launched Taurus rocket. Scheduled for launch this Friday, October from Vandenberg AFB, California the Taurus will carry the Space Technology Experiment (STEX) satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) into orbit approximately 685 kilometers above the Earth. Targeted launch time is 3:11 a.m. PST with a one minute launch window.
The STEX mission will be the second Taurus launch in 1998, and the third in the rocket program’s history. Earlier this year, Orbital successfully launched the GeoSat Follow-on (GFO) satellite for the U.S. Navy, together with two ORBCOMM data communications satellites, on its second Taurus vehicle. The maiden flight of Taurus occurred in 1994, when Orbital successfully carried out a mission for the U.S. Government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The STEX satellite is a 1,540 pound experimental spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin Corporation that will be operated by the NRO. The spacecraft is designed to demonstrate 29 new technologies that may result in lower cost and higher performance spacecraft for future missions. Among the new technologies are a tether system to help understand how towed objects behave in space, an electrical propulsion system that is lighter weight and more efficient than traditional chemical systems and a low-shock system to separate the satellite from the launch vehicle.
NRO Reports From Spacer.Com
