It is operated by Northrop Grumman Space Systems, and made its maiden flight on 22 April 2010, carrying the HTV-2a Hypersonic Test Vehicle.

The Minotaur IV vehicle consists of four stages and is capable of placing 1,591 kilograms (3,508 lb) of payload into a low Earth orbit (LEO).

The Minotaur IV family is derived from the LGM-118 Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), deployed from 1985 until 2005.

The initial three stages all have thrust vector control, allowing them to steer the rocket downrange by gimballing the motor nozzles.

The second and third stages also feature extendable nozzles, allowing for improved performance in the upper portions of Earth's atmosphere as well as the vacuum of space.

[2] On one occasion, for the ORS-5 mission, Minotaur IV was outfitted with a second Orion 38 motor to allow the payload to be inserted into an equatorial orbit.

The HAPS was developed for the Pegasus rocket to fine-tune the payload's orbit since solid motors are not capable of fine adjustments.

The IV Lite is intended for suborbital missions, allowing government customers to test new technologies like hypersonic aircraft or missile interception.

This variant is almost identical to the unflown Minotaur III rocket, which was also intended to perform suborbital missions.

It was the 29th small launch vehicle mission in STP's 49-year history of flying DoD space experiments,[16] STP-S26 was intended to extend previous standard interface development efforts, implementing a number of capabilities aimed at enabling responsive access to space for small experimental satellites and payloads.