The U.S. Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office has completed a flight readiness review for the ORS-5 space-tracking satellite, keeping the mission on track for an Aug. 25 launch, the service announced Aug. 18.
Built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, ORS-5 is slated to lift off on an Orbital ATK [OA] Minotaur IV launch vehicle from Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. A four-hour launch window opens at 11:15 p.m. Eastern time.
ORS-5, also called SensorSat, will operate in low Earth orbit to help the military scan for other satellites and debris in geosynchronous orbit. It is expected to last at least three years.
“ORS-5 will deliver space situational awareness capabilities at a significantly reduced cost compared to larger, more complex satellites, and serves as a gap-filler mission for the Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) Block 10 mission, originally launched in 2010,” the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center said. “A successor SBSS mission is not expected to launch before 2021.”
Boeing [BA] and Ball Aerospace & Technologies [BLL] supplied the SBSS Block 10 satellite, which was also launched on a Minotaur IV.
The ORS-5 satellite weighs about 250 pounds and is about five feet long and two and a half feet wide. The Air Force pegged the mission’s total cost at $87.5 million: $49 million for the satellite, $27.2 million for the launch and $11.3 million for the ground system. Orbital ATK plans to broadcast the launch live on its website.
The ORS office, meanwhile, hopes to launch an unrelated mission in about six months. ORS-6, a weather demonstration satellite, is scheduled to lift off in mid-to-late February on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, said Capt. Christine Guthrie, an Air Force spokeswoman.
Established in 2007 and located at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, the ORS office is intended to rapidly develop urgently needed space capabilities.