Hush-hush military satellite ready to ride Pegasus rocket into orbit
June 12, 2021
A small U.S. military satellite named Odyssey, designed and built in less than a year by a secretive new Space Force special projects unit, is set to launch early Sunday from an aircraft off the coast of California aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket.
The mission’s goal is to demonstrate how the military can develop and launch satellites on faster timescales. The small spacecraft, which a Space Force spokesperson said is named Odyssey, is buttoned up inside the nose cone of a Pegasus XL rocket.
The solid-fueled Pegasus launcher is mounted under the belly of an L-1011 carrier jet awaiting takeoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The triple-engine aircraft is expected to take off about an hour before launch time, which the Space Force said is set for 4:11 a.m. EDT (1:11 a.m. PDT; 0811 GMT) Sunday.
Northrop Grumman and the Space Force do not plan to provide a live webcast of the launch.
There is a 60% chance of acceptable weather for Sunday’s launch opportunity, primarily driven by a thick marine cloud layer at Vandenberg that could prevent the L-1011 aircraft, named “Stargazer,” from taking off.
The 55-foot-long (17-meter) Pegasus XL rocket is capable of placing a payload of up to 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) into low Earth orbit, according to Northrop Grumman. The rocket consists of a winged first stage and two additional solid-fueled motors.
The L-1011 carrier jet, crewed by two pilots, a flight engineer, and two launch operators, will head west from Vandenberg to the Pegasus drop box about 150 miles (250 kilometers) off the coast.
“At this point, we’re pretty much ready to go,” said Kurt Eberly, director of Northrop Grumman’s launch vehicles division. “We are monitoring the weather. The marine layer has been moving in at night, and this launch is scheduled for early morning. So we’ll be monitoring that for some of the aircraft constraints in terms of ceiling minimums and visibility minimums, and hopefully we can get clear on that.”
The mission launching Sunday is known as TacRL-2, and is part of the Space Force’s “Tactically Responsive Launch” program.
Military officials have released few details about the Odyssey satellite.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/06/12/hush-hush-military-satellite-ready-to-ride-pegasus-rocket-into-orbit/