Minotaur IV com NROL129

Video from the channel HOMEM DO ESPAÇO about Minotaur IV, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 16:30. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Livestream.

Portuguese-commentated broadcast of the NROL-129 military launch with a Northrop Grumman Minotaur IV rocket — the company that absorbed Orbital — from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, next to Wallops Flight Facility, in Virginia. The rocket, with four solid-fuel stages, carried four payloads for the US Department of Defense.

During the countdown, the commentator describes the vehicle: about 23.88 metres long, with the first three stages coming from the Peacekeeper missile almost unmodified, and a fourth Orion 38 stage on which the avionics are mounted. He explains that the shape of the propellant grain's internal cavity determines how thrust evolves over time, that the nozzles are steered by electromechanical actuators, and that attitude control works using cold gas. After liftoff he follows the first-stage burn and the stage separations.

The official feed is cut during the second-stage burn because it is a classified mission. Up to that point the flight proceeds normally, and it remains to be confirmed whether the payloads reached the planned orbit.