This post is from May 2004. Facts and links may have changed since. See more from that month

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Puzzling over a classified payload

Last October, Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that the U.S. Air Force ordered a Minotaur space launch vehicle to launch a classified payload in 2005.

The Minotaur launch vehicle provides “low cost, reliable space launch capability in support of U.S. government small-satellite launch requirements” for programs such as the NFIRE and the XSS-11.

I’ve got this hunch that the program is the long awaited MightySat II.2, which has just completely disappeared. Hard to say.

Jeffrey Lewis

Writing on ACW 2004–2026

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk.com. He is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His also a non-resident affiliate at Stanford's Center for Security and International Cooperation and a Contributing Editor to Survival.

All posts by Jeffrey Lewis