Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

The last Minotaur 4 launch from Space Launch Complex 8 was on Aug. 11, 2011. It is returning to that pad nearly a decade and a half later, lifting off on Wednesday, April 16, at 12:33 p.m. PDT (3:33 p.m. EDT, 1933 UTC).

United Launch Alliance’s final Delta 2 rocket is now on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, a monument to an industry workhorse that helped build the GPS navigation satellite fleet and enabled a new era of Mars exploration.

The U.S. Space Force expects to complete design validation on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket by July, ahead of the launch of the military’s first high-priority national security mission on the heavy-lifter late this year.