The Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, managing partner of the nonprofit Kentucky Space consortium designed and built Frontier 1 to test hardware and software systems that will be on board a new orbital satellite: KentuckySat 1, set for a November launch by NASA.

Frontier 1 rose to a height of 270 km (167 miles).  After about 10 minutes in space, it returned to burn up in the atmosphere.  Video of the launch is at the top of this page.

"This exciting announcement shows that Kentucky is among the elite in innovation and scientific advancement," Gov. Steve Beshear said.

"This unique partnership among Kentucky's higher education institutions, state government and private industry shows that the Commonwealth is a bastion of high-tech, 21st century learning, as well as limitless economic opportunity," Beshear said.

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