High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (ARGOS) was launched on 23 Feb 1999 from SLC-2W, Vandenberg AFB, CA, atop a Boeing Delta II (7920-10) (List of Delta II launches). Construction of the spacecraft bus and integration of the satellite`s nine payloads was accomplished by Boeing at their Seal Beach, CA facility. The program was funded and led by the DoD`s Space Test Program as mission P91-1 (the first mission contract let in 1991). The nine payloads were research and development missions by nine separate researchers. The $220M mission was operated by Air Force Space Command`s Space and Missile Systems Center`s Test and Evaluation Directorate (now Space Test and Development Wing) from their RDT&E Support Complex (RSC) at Kirtland AFB, NM. ARGOS was the first mission operated 100% from the new state-of-the-art, commercial-off-the-shelf Kirtland facility; all previous SMC satellite missions had been operated in total or at least in part from the preceding center at Onizuka AFS, CA.