2 Jun 2021

A Minotaur I rocket carrying a national security payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is scheduled for launch June 15, 2021, from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The U.S. Space Force (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center’s Launch Enterprise is providing the launch services for this mission.

The launch vehicle, built and operated by Northrop Grumman, is scheduled for liftoff between 6:30 and 11:30 a.m. EDT from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s (MARS) Pad 0B on Wallops Island.

The launch may be visible along the U.S. east coast. In addition, the mission will be streamed live on the Wallops YouTube channel.

The NASA Visitor Center at Wallops will not be open for this mission.

Mission information, including photos, will be available following the launch on the NRO, USSF, NASA Wallops, and Northrop Grumman websites, and their respective Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

This mission, named NROL-111, will be the third small launch USSF mission and the NRO’s second dedicated launch from Wallops in the last 12 months.

The NRO is the Intelligence Community element and a Department of Defense agency responsible for developing, acquiring, launching, and operating America’s intelligence satellites to meet the national security needs of the nation.

The 69-foot tall Minotaur I launch vehicle consists of two solid-fueled motors from decommissioned Minuteman ICBMs as the lower stages and two solid-fueled commercial solid rocket motors as upper stages.

NROL-111 is the second Northrop Grumman orbital launch from the MARS launch pads in 2021. Minotaur rockets have been launched from Wallops for nearly 15 years.

[Image]

(A) (B) A Minotaur 1 launches from Pad 0B at Wallops