USAF Minotaur IV+ Launch A Lifesaver And The Ultimate In Recycling (LAUNCH)

[SatNews] Successful recycling of a former major weapon with the potential to destroy now may save lives.

A joint military team used a Minotaur IV+ rocket — essentially a decommissioned Peacekeeper missile built decades ago during the Cold War -— to successfully launch, at 8:49 a.m. PDT today from Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s Kodiak Launch Complex, the TacSat-4 satellite into orbit. The microsatellite will enable “on the move” communication, (COTM) relaying calls and data directly to the handheld radios currently in use by nearly every branch of the military.

Developed by the Naval Research Laboratory for the Office of Naval Research and the Operationally Responsive Space Office, TacSat-4 will enable deployed military members utilizing hand-held radios to contact and task the experimental asset even in many, now problematic, mountainous and urban areas. The tiny satellite weighs 990 pounds versus the industry average of about 4,300.

Most troops today carry PRC-117 radios for communication, devices that rely on UHF transmissions. They relay calls and data back to a base station that’s brought in and fixed in place, either set up on a hillside locally or carried overhead in a nearby plane. The TacSat-4 (or tactical microsatellite) lets the hundreds of thousands of military handheld radios currently in use communicate directly with an antenna orbiting in the most convenient spot imaginable: all that space overhead.

In Afghanistan and other spots, mountainous terrain makes communications with hillside base stations challenging. In recent years, one special ops solider was killed trying to radio for support, his handheld unable to communicate with an nearby antenna. TacSat-4 might have been the difference between life and death.

This marks the first successful launch of the Minotaur IV+ launch vehicle configuration, the fifth successful Minotaur IV launch, and the 23rd success of the Minotaur fleet.  The overall launch service and management for the Minotaur IV launch vehicle is provided by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Space Development and Test Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.