Little Joe III?

[Dave J]

Contracts are out for the launch test vehicle for CEV abort testing...

http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=605

It's going to be a biggie...

[NEOWatcher]

Contracts are out for the launch test vehicle for CEV abort testing...

http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=605

It's going to be a biggie...

So does this...


The contract was awarded under SDTW's Sounding Rockets Program 2 (SRP-2) contract, which allows the use of surplus government boosters to reduce launch vehicle cost for U.S. Government-sponsored missions.

mean that it is not going to be a new rocket, but a new configuration of existing rockets?


At first I thought "Little Joe? so what", but that was before I saw that LJs could put 4k in orbit, and the test capsules to 150km alt.

[Larry Jacks]

Depending on the thrust needed, they might be able to use a surplus Peacekeeper or Minuteman II first stage. If those rockets have not been destroyed, there should be a few hundred Minuteman II engines and 50-100 Peacekeeper engines available since the missiles have been decommissioned. If they'll work, why not?

[Doodler]

If they were decommissioned properly, if there's enough components to assemble enough working engines to make the inventory sufficient.

[Larry Jacks]

Back in the late 1980s, the US and Soviet Union agreed to get rid of a generation of IRBMs (Pershing IIs for the US and SS-20s for the Soviets). The US destroyed the rockets. The Soviets launched theirs. I don't know what we've done with the 450 or so Minuteman IIs and the 50 or so Peacekeepers that were removed from the inventory in the past 15 years or so. That many missiles would take up a lot of storage space. Perhaps there are still some around. I'll poke around on the Net and see if I can find out what happened to them.

[sts60]

I don't know what we've done with the 450 or so Minuteman IIs and the 50 or so Peacekeepers that were removed from the inventory in the past 15 years or so.

Some of the Peacekeepers wound up in Tauruses (http://www.orbital.com/SpaceLaunch/Taurus/index.html) as well as the upcoming Minotaur IV (http://www.orbital.com/SpaceLaunch/MinotaurIV/index.html), and some of the Minutemen in Minotaur Is (http://www.orbital.com/SpaceLaunch/Minotaur/index.html). I (well, not me personally, just the system I worked on) had a ride on the lone Taurus to fail. Figures. :D

[publiusr]

I thought it would be a stump SRB..