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Thor-Delta
The Thor-Delta, also known as Delta DM-19 or just Delta was an early American expendable launch system used for 12 orbital launches in the early 1960s. A derivative of the Thor-Able, it was a member of the Thor family of rockets, and the first member of the Delta family. The first stage was a Thor missile in the DM-19 configuration (DM-18A / MB-3-I engine). The second stage was the Delta ( AJ-10-142 engine), which had been derived from the earlier Able stage. An Altair solid rocket motor (X-248A-7) was used as a third stage. The basic design of the original Vanguard upper stages, featuring a pressure-fed nitric acid/UDMH, regeneratively cooled engine, was kept in place, but with an improved AJ10-118 engine. More significantly, the Delta stage featured cold gas attitude control jets allowing it to be stabilized in orbit for restart and more precise burns. The Thor-Delta was the first rocket to use the combination of a Thor missile and a Delta upper stage. This configurati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 17
Space Launch Complex 17 (SLC-17), previously designated Launch Complex 17 (LC-17), was a launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida used for Thor and Delta launch vehicles launches between 1958 and 2011. Originally built in 1956, SLC-17 features two expendable launch vehicle (ELV) launch pads, SLC-17A and SLC-17B. The pads were operated by the 45th Space Wing and have supported more than 300 Department of Defense, NASA and commercial missile and rocket launches. History SLC-17 was built in 1956 by the United States Air Force for use with the PGM-17 Thor missile, the first operational ballistic missile in the arsenal of the United States. It was initially designed for testing suborbital launches of the Thor, in accordance to the IRBM's planned stationing in the United Kingdom as part of Project Emily. Pad 17A supported its first Thor missile launch on 3 August 1957, and Pad 17B supported its first Thor launch on 25 January 1957. As the Thor got wound down from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thor (rocket Family)
Thor was a US space launch vehicle derived from the PGM-17 Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile. The Thor rocket was the first member of the Delta rocket family of space launch vehicles. The last launch of a direct derivative of the Thor missile occurred in 2018 as the first stage of the final Delta II. Thor-Able Thor was first used as a launch vehicle during the testing program of the warhead reentry vehicle for the Atlas missile. For these three tests a Thor core stage was topped by the Able second stage. Able used the Aerojet AJ-10-40 engine from the Vanguard second stage. The first such launch, 116, was lost on 23 April 1958 due to a turbopump failure in the main engine. The recovery of the reentry vehicles on the succeeding two attempts were not successful. Three mice, one on each vehicle, died in these tests. The Able stage from the Atlas reentry vehicle tests was upgraded to become the Able I with a third stage consisting of an unguided Altair X-248 solid-fuel rocket ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariel 1
Ariel 1 (also known as UK-1 and S-55), was the first British-American satellite, and the first satellite in the Ariel programme. Its launch in 1962 made the United Kingdom the third country to operate a satellite, after the Soviet Union and the United States. It was constructed in the UK and the United States by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Science and Engineering Research Council, SERC, under an agreement reached as the result of political discussions in 1959 and 1960. The US Starfish Prime exoatmospheric nuclear test affected Ariel 1's operational capability. Development In late 1959, the British National Committee for Space Research proposed the development of Ariel 1 to NASA. By early the following year the two countries had decided upon terms for the Ariel programme's scope and which organisations would be responsible for which parts of the programme. The UK Minister of Science named the satellite after Ariel (Shakespeare character), the sprite in Shakespeare's ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TIROS-4
TIROS-4 (also called TIROS-D and A9) was a spin-stabilized meteorological satellite. It was the fourth in a series of Television Infrared Observation Satellites. Launch TIROS-4 was launched on February 8, 1962, by a Thor-Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The spacecraft functioned nominally until June 30, 1962. The satellite orbited the Earth once every 1 hour and 30 minutes, at an inclination of 48.3°. Its perigee was and apogee was . Mission The satellite was in the form of an 18-sided right prism, 107 cm in diameter and 56 cm high. The top and sides of the spacecraft were covered with approximately 9000 1- by 2-cm silicon solar cells. It was equipped with two independent television camera subsystems for taking cloud cover pictures and three radiometers (two-channel low-resolution, omnidirectional, and five-channel scanning) for measuring radiation from the Earth and its atmosphere. The satellite spin rate was maintained between 8 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Echo Satellite
Project Echo was the first passive communications satellite experiment. Each of the two American spacecraft, launched in 1960 and 1964, were metalized balloon satellites acting as passive reflectors of microwave signals. Communication signals were transmitted from one location on Earth and bounced off the surface of the satellite to another Earth location. The first transmissions using Echo were sent from Goldstone, California, to Crawford Hill in Holmdel, New Jersey, on 12 August 1960. The last Echo satellite deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere on 7 June 1969.Astronautix.com, ''Echo'' Background The concept of using orbital satellites to relay communications predated space travel, first being advanced by[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Explorer 10
Explorer 10 (also known as Explorer X or P14) was a NASA satellite that investigated Earth's magnetic field and nearby plasma. Launched on 25 March 1961, it was an early mission in the Explorer program and was the first satellite to measure the "shock wave" generated by a solar flare. Mission The objective was to investigate the magnetic field and plasma as the spacecraft passed through Earth's magnetosphere and into cislunar space. The satellite was launched by a Thor DM-19 Delta (Thor 295) into a highly-elliptical orbit and was spin-stabilized with a spin period of 0.548 seconds. The direction of its spin vector was 71° right ascension and −15° declination. Spacecraft Explorer 10 was a cylindrical, battery-powered spacecraft instrumented with two fluxgate magnetometers and one rubidium vapor magnetometer extending from the main spacecraft body, and a Faraday cup plasma probe. The magnetometers were produced by Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Massachuse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TIROS-3
TIROS-3 (or TIROS-C) was a spin-stabilized meteorological satellite. It was the third in a series of Television Infrared Observation Satellites. Launch TIROS-3 was launched on July 12, 1961, by a Thor-Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The spacecraft functioned nominally until January 22, 1962. The satellite orbited the Earth once every 98 minutes, at an inclination of 47.9°. Its perigee was and apogee was . Mission The satellite was in the form of an 18-sided right prism, 107 cm in diameter and 56 cm high. The top and sides of the spacecraft were covered with approximately 9000 1- by 2-cm silicon solar cells. TIROS-3 was equipped with two independent television camera subsystems for taking cloud cover pictures, plus a two-channel low-resolution radiometer, an omnidirectional radiometer, and a five-channel infrared scanning radiometer. All three radiometers were used for measuring radiation from the Earth and its atmosphere. The satell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta (rocket Family)
The Delta rocket family was a versatile range of American rocket-powered expendable launch systems that provided space launch capability in the United States from 1960 to 2024. Japan also launched license-built derivatives ( N-I, N-II, and H-I) from 1975 to 1992. More than 300 Delta rockets were launched with a 95% success rate. The series was phased out in favor of the Vulcan Centaur, with the Delta IV Heavy rocket's last launch occurring on April 9, 2024. Origins The original Delta rockets used a modified version of the PGM-17 Thor, the first ballistic missile deployed by the United States Air Force (USAF), as their first stage. The Thor had been designed in the mid-1950s to reach Moscow from bases in Britain or similar allied nations, and the first wholly successful Thor launch had occurred in September 1957. Subsequent satellite and space probe flights soon followed, using a Thor first stage with several different upper stages. The fourth upper-stage combinatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AJ10
The AJ10 is a hypergolic rocket engine manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne (previously Aerojet). It has been used to propel the upper stages of several launch vehicles, including the Delta II and Titan III. Variants were and are used as the service propulsion engine for the Apollo command and service module, in the Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System, and on the European Service Module – part of NASA's Orion spacecraft. Variants It was first used in the Delta-A/Able second stage of the Vanguard rocket, in the AJ10-37 configuration. It was initially fueled by nitric acid and UDMH. An AJ10 engine was first fired in flight during the third Vanguard launch, on 17 March 1958, which successfully placed the Vanguard 1 satellite into orbit. The AJ10-101 engine was used on an uprated version of the Able stage, used on Atlas-Able and Thor-Able rockets. The first AJ10-101 flight, with a Thor-Able, occurred on 23 April 1958; however, the Thor failed before the upper Able stage fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TIROS-2
TIROS-2 (or TIROS-B) was a spin-stabilized meteorological satellite. It was the second in a series of Television Infrared Observation Satellites. It re-entered in May 2014. Spacecraft TIROS-2 was an 18-sided right prism, 107 cm in diameter and 56 cm high, with 9,260 1 by 2 cm silicon solar cells covered the top and sides. Five small directly opposed pairs of solid-fuel thrusters maintained a spin of 8 to 12 rpm. For attitude control, the spacecraft used an infrared horizon sensor and a magnetic attitude control device, made of 250 cores of wire wound around the outer surface, which oriented the spin axis to a 1 to 2 degree accuracy. It also had a direction indicator for picture orientation. The satellite had two independent television camera subsystems, one low-resolution and one high-resolution, for taking pictures of cloud cover. Each camera had a magnetic tape recorder for storing photographs while out of range of the ground station network. It also had a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telstar
Telstar refers to a series of communications satellites. The first two, Telstar 1 and Telstar 2, were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched atop of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962, successfully relayed the first television pictures, telephone calls, and Radiofax, telegraph images through space. It also provided the first live transatlantic television feed. Telstar 2 was launched May 7, 1963. Telstar 1 and 2—though no longer functional—still orbit the Earth. Description Belonging to AT&T Corporation, AT&T, the original Telstar was part of a multi-national agreement among AT&T (USA), Bell Labs, Bell Telephone Laboratories (USA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA (USA), General Post Office, GPO (United Kingdom) and the Orange S.A., direction générale des Télécommunications (France) to develop experimental communications satellite, satellite communications over the Atlantic Ocean. Bell Labs held a contract with NASA, paying the ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
