In addition, designers had to figure out how to build a camera that could operate remotely in the cold vacuum of space.Īgena included a Bell rocket engine with 16,000 pounds of thrust to propel the system into final orbit and a platform to carry the Corona payload. The required orbital velocity had never before been reached, nor had reentry vehicles survived the hot trip back through the atmosphere to the ground. It has since become routine for spacecraft, but in the 1950s it was not. For the first time, engineers had to stabilize a satellite in three directions-a technique known as three-axis stabilization. To succeed, the Corona effort had to achieve a number of technological firsts. ![]() Plummer, program manager for Corona at Lockheed, the prime contractor for the project. “Almost every phase of the program was pioneering,” said James W. The satellites were launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., into 100-nautical-mile-high orbits over the poles. The satellites used a Thor booster topped by an Agena spacecraft to house the cameras and all the equipment needed to support them. The program produced imagery from August 1960 to May 1972, though launches of the first Corona hardware began in January 1959. He had come to lift the veil of secrecy on Corona and announce that some 800,000 satellite images snapped by cameras flown on satellites in the Corona program between 19 would be declassified and released to the public.Īt last, the story of the first US spy satellite program could be told, although by 1995 some of the key participants had died and the technical wizardry that enabled the return of high-resolution photos to Earth-special cameras to snap detailed pictures from 100 miles away, platforms that could speed through space without jittering, and return capsules that could survive reentry for secret recovery by aircraft or ships-now seems old hat.Ĭorona was a broad spy satellite effort that entailed 130 launches. On a cold day in February, Vice President Al Gore traveled from the White House to CIA headquarters in suburban Virginia to speak to a crowd of CIA workers and Washington VIPs. And although the reality they depict existed thirty-five years ago, the recently declassified pictures make a fascinating study for any student of technology, deception, and the path over which reconnaissance satellites traveled to become a modern tool of truth for the intelligence community. To illustrate how average images of this sequence look, I also have added another set that shows roughly the same detail, such as thicker upper-end and some albedo variations.They are from Corona, the nation’s first spy satellite project. The image above is the best from the video-sequence. Even differences in thickness of the Agena can be recognized clearly from that distance. To my surprise, the best frames clearly showed the shape and even more. But the Agena is a pretty long shaped rocket stage, so I hoped to see at least the elongated appearance. It is not an easy object to photograph: brightness was at the limit for high-resolution imaging with my setup and an upper stage at 818 kilometers distance is pretty small. It wasn’t until October 2014 that I processed these three year old images of 50 year old rockets. Over the years I have developed better techniques and I knew in 2011 that my processing technique was developing and making progress. I captured the Agena in September 2011 with a 10 inch reflecting telescope on video. Thanks to the considerable altitude, it is still in orbit after 50 years. Exactly at that altitude we find the old spent Agena upper stage from this launch. The two satellites were released at an alititude of around 800 kilometers. Their purpose was probably to test military spaceflight technology. On January 19, 1964, a Thor Agena D SLV-2 rocket lifted up from the Vandenberg SLC2W complex with the two military satellites OPS 3367A and OPS 3367B. The Agena rocket in the picture is pretty much the same type as used for the Gemini flights but without the docking adapter and in its original configuration. ![]() In 1966, Neil Armstrong and David Scott performed the first ever docking of two spacecraft in orbit with Gemini-8 and the Agena. ![]() The Agena-D rocket upper stage is best known from the Gemini-era as the Agena Target Vehicle (ATV). I was intrigued by the fact that the technique used to photograph this object wasn’t actually available at the time of launch. That is what the following pictures are about. Imagine seeing the remains of a rocket launch from 50 years ago, as a fossil of spaceflight history in orbit. The Thor Agena B with Discoverer 37 on the launch pad Jan.
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