Thor-Agena

A Thor Agena, ready to launch the Discoverer 37 (KH-3) spacecraft, 13 January 1962

Thor-Agena was a series of orbital launch vehicles. The rockets used Thor first stages and Agena second stages. They are thus cousins of the more famous Thor-Deltas, which founded the Delta rocket family. The first attempted launch of a Thor-Agena was in January 1959. The first successful launch was on February 28, 1959, launching Discoverer-1.

Uses

Among other uses, the clandestine Corona program used Thor-Agenas from June 1959 until January 1968 to launch US military reconnaissance satellites operated by the CIA. During this program, Thor-Agena launch vehicles were used in 145 launch attempts^[1] now known to have been part of satellite surveillance programs.

Also, Alouette 1, Canada's first satellite, was launched on a Thor-Agena-B.

Versions

Thor-Agena-A

• 16 launches between 21 Jan 1959 and 13 Sep 1960
• The Discoverer 14 satellite used in the Corona spy satellite program was launched by a Thor-Agena-A. On 1960-08-19 usable photographic film from the satellite was recovered by a C-119 recovery aircraft. This was the first successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite and the first mid-air recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit.^[2]

Thor-Agena-B

• First successful launch: Nov 12, 1960 with Discoverer 17
• Last launch: May 15, 1966 with Nimbus 2

Thor-Agena-D

• First launch: Jun 28, 1962
• Last launch: Jan 17, 1968

References

1. Day, Dwayne, John Logsdon, and Brian Latell. Eye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites. Smithsonian Institution Press (1998) pp 236-245
2. "Discoverer 14 - NSSDC ID: 1960-010A". NASA.