Encyclopedia entry

Minotaur V

Launch vehicle · USA

Original archive entry. The text, images and links below are kept as they were written.

American test vehicle. Five stage vehicle consisting of 1 x SR118 + 1 x SR119 + 1 x SR120 + 1 x Star 48V + 1 x Star 37FM.

More at: Minotaur V.

Chronology

1 event

03:27 GMT - . Launch Site: Wallops Island. Launch Complex: Wallops Island LA0B. LV Family: Peacekeeper. Launch Vehicle: Minotaur V.

LADEE - . Mass: 383 kg (844 lb). Nation: USA. Class: Moon. Type: Lunar probe. Spacecraft: MCSB. Decay Date: 2014-04-18 . USAF Sat Cat: 39246 . COSPAR: 2013-047A.
NASA Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Enviroment Explorer mission. It carried an ultraviolet spectrometer, a lunar dust experiment, a neutral mass spectrometer, and a laser communications experiment. An Aerojet Rocketdyne/Redmond R-4D-15 HiPAT 455N thruster, with 135 kg of propellant, was used for lunar orbit insertion and orbit maneuvers. After three perigee boost maneuvers it entered lunar gravitational sphere of influence on 6 October at 18:02 GMT. The lunar orbit insertion burn at 10:57 GMT placed LADEE in a 24-hour-period 269 km x 15,772 km selenocentric orbit inclined 157 deg to the lunar equator. Two further burns, the last on 12 October at 10:40 GMT, placed the spacecraft in a 248 km x 251 km orbit. The spacecraft was lowered into an orbit with a 2 km perilune in early April 2014, and it impacted the lunar farside between 04:30 and 05:22 GMT April 18, possibly on the east rim of the crater Sundman V at 12N 93W, north of Mare Orientale.