DISCOVERE 34, also known as CORONA 9027, was a
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
optical
reconnaissance satellite
A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications.
The ...
which was launched on 5 November 1961. It was the ninth of ten
CORONA KH-2 satellites, based on the
Agena B.
Launch
The launch of DISCOVERER 34 occurred at 20:00:30 GMT on 5 November 1961.
A
Thor-Agena B launch vehicle was used, flying from
Launch Complex 75-1-1 at the
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Vandenberg may refer to:
* Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name
* USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida
* Vandenberg S ...
.
Although the satellite achieved orbit, and was assigned the
Harvard designation 1961 Alpha Epsilon 1, the launch was unsuccessful. An anomalous angle taken during ascent resulted in the spacecraft being placed into an unusable orbit.
It was the second consecutive KH-2 launch failure; the previous mission,
Discoverer 33, had failed to achieve orbit due to a separation failure.
DISCOVERER 34 was launched into a
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...
, with a
perigee of , an
apogee of , 82.7° of
inclination, and a
period of 97.20 minutes.
[ ] The satellite had a mass of ,
and was equipped with a
panoramic camera with a
focal length
The focal length of an Optics, optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the Multiplicative inverse, inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system Converge ...
of , which had a maximum resolution of .
[ ] Images were to have been recorded onto film, and returned in a
Satellite Recovery Vehicle (SRV). The Satellite Recovery Vehicle to be used by DISCOVERER 34 was SRV-553. Due to the launch failure, and a problem with a gas valve on the spacecraft, recovery of the SRV was not attempted.
Discoverer 34
decayed from orbit on 7 December 1962.
References
Spacecraft launched in 1961
Satellite launch failures
Spacecraft which reentered in 1962
{{US-spacecraft-stub