5TH ANNUAL

The 5th Annual Space Force T-Minus 10-Miler will feature the Matador. The featured Matador will be portrayed on the event’s official race shirts, finisher medals, commemorative patches, and more throughout 2026.

The Matador Missile was the first successful U.S. Air Force surface-to-surface weapon system and one of the earliest missile programs tested at Cape Canaveral, helping establish the site as the nation’s premier launch and test range. Developed in the late 1940s and fielded in the early 1950s, it introduced a new era of pilotless, jet-powered strike capability with both conventional and nuclear payload options, supporting forward-deployed deterrence across Europe and Asia. Testing and training operations on the Cape refined launch, guidance, and operational concepts that directly influenced modern missile and space systems. Though retired by the early 1960s, the Matador’s legacy lives on in today’s precision strike and national defense architectures – and at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum, where a rare restored example is preserved and displayed in Hangar C.