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Watch: Space Force Launches 3 Classified Payloads Into Orbit
Published 3 years ago
The U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center announced on Jun. 15, 2021 they had successfully launched three classified payloads into low Earth orbit by means of a Northrop Grumman Minotaur-1four-stage solid fuel rocket.
The Space Force launched the national security payloads on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Minotaur-1 boosters are produced from refurbished, decommissioned Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) from the Cold War era.
The mission was named NROL-111 and was the Minotaur 1’s first launch for the NRO, the agency that builds US spy satellites. The launch was conducted under the US Space Force’s Rocket Systems Launch Program’s Orbital/Suborbital Program (OSP)-3.