Minotaur IV version
Minotaur IV Minotaur IV Lite
The suborbital Minotaur IV: the same three Peacekeeper-derived stages without the fourth. It first flew on 22 April 2010 and has been used only for the HTV-2 hypersonic vehicle programme.
- April 22, 2010
- First launch
- No
- Reusable
History
A launcher that does not orbit
The IV Lite drops the Minotaur IV's fourth stage and with it any orbital insertion capability. Its customer does not want orbit but a fast, repeatable suborbital trajectory on which to test technologies: hypersonic gliders, re-entry bodies, interception systems.
The HTV-2 programme
Its only two known flights up to 2025 supported the HTV-2 programme of the US defence advanced research agency. The first, on 22 April 2010, also opened the Minotaur IV's career as a whole; the second, in 2011, lifted off from Vandenberg's SLC-8. In both cases the vehicle acted as the booster for an experimental glider meant to fly at hypersonic speed in the upper atmosphere.
Place in the family
The IV Lite illustrates the logic of the whole Minotaur family: reuse motors from retired ballistic missiles to give government payloads cheap access to space — or to its edge. US law forbids selling missile hardware to non-institutional customers, so these configurations fly only for the government or for programmes it sponsors.