Posted: Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 7:03 AM ET (1203 GMT)
A Minotaur rocket launched an Air Force technology demonstration satellite and 28 cubesats on Tuesday night. The Minotaur I lifted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia, at 8:15 pm EST Tuesday (0115 GMT Wednesday) on the ORS-3 mission for the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office. The launch was delayed 45 minutes because of a problem with a tracking station, but the launch otherwise took place smoothly. The Minotaur's primary payload was STPSat-3, a spacecraft that uses a standard bus to host five payloads to test sensors and collect space science data. The launch also carried 28 cubesats into orbit, ranging from NASA's PhoneSat 2.4 satellite that uses a smartphone for much of its electronics to TJ3Sat, a cubesat built by high school students in Virginia.
