Minotaur-C successfully launches 10 commercial smallsats

Capitalism in space: Orbital ATK’s Minotaur-C rocket today successfully launched 10 commercial smallsats.

It appears that they have upgraded the accused Taurus rocket in renaming it Minotaur-C.

After Orbital ATK suffered a series of launch failures with the Taurus rockets — which led to the loss of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory as well as its Glory climate-monitoring satellite — the company redesigned the Taurus. The new and improved rocket uses newer and more reliable technologies that Orbital ATK had built for its other Minotaur rockets.

This success is a very good thing for Orbital ATK, as the rocket likely gives them a strong position in the emerging smallsat market.

Orbital ATK to launch first Minotaur-C in six and a half years

Capitalism in space: Orbital ATK will try today to successfully launch its renamed Taurus rocket, six and a half years after its previous two launches had ended in failure.

The rocket is now called Minotaur-C and will attempt to launch ten Planet Lab smallsats. As Taurus, the rocket failed 3 times out of 9 launches, and from what I could tell watching the launch industry, was basically a dead product. I am now astonished that it is coming back to life. Apparently, Planet Lab got a good launch price, and can take the risk since its smallsats represent a relatively small investment and can be replaced much more easily than the two research satellites (Orbiting Carbon Laboratory and Glory) that NASA lost in the rocket’s previous two launches more than half a decade ago.

The article outlines nicely the history of this rocket, and how its failures significantly set back the growth of Orbital ATK. Hopefully, it will succeed now, and provide the U.S. another player in the increasingly competitive global launch market.