Orbital Sciences Corp. launched the TacSat-2 satellite for the U.S. Air Force aboard a Minotaur I space launch vehicle Dec. 16, the first mission from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), a private facility located at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The Minotaur launch was performed for the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center Space Development and Test Wing located at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, and the mission also carried the GeneSat-1 microsatellite for NASA’s Ames Research Center.