Wednesday, June 10, 1970

Discoverer 8

 1959-011


On Flight 8 the integrator failed and Agena 1050 burnt to depletion, placing CORONA mission 9005 in an orbit with a much higher apogee than planned; when recovery was nevertheless attempted on orbit 15, the parachute failed and the capsule beacon was not detected. Launch was on 1959 Nov 20 and the attempted recovery was the following day. The orbital data suggests an ejection at around 2117 UTC but NASA TN-D-601 reports 2120 UTC as the ejection time, when it would have been at only 48 deg N or less - low for later missions but similar to Discoverer 6. An NRO telex, `Flight 9005 preliminary report', reports separation at 2129 UTC.


KH-1 Mission 9005 
 

DateTimeEventOrbit  

1959 Nov 20  1925  Launch by Thor Agena A  
 1927  Thor MECO (T+2:44) 
 1927  Thor VECO (T+2:54) 
 1928  Thor sep (T+3:02) 
 1929  Agena burn (T+4:33) 
 1931  Agena cutoff (T+6:33)  
   103.7 187 x 1679 x 80.7 (RAE) 
   103.7 193 x 1700 x ? (VCR) 
   103.5 186 x 1661 x 80.5 (SATCAT) 
1959 Nov 20  2032   103.51 190 x 1658 x 80.6 
1969 Nov 21  2115  Recovery sequence begins 
1959 Nov 21  2120?  SRV ejected rev 15 
 2120 SRV deorbit  -14? x 1390? x 80.60 
 2138? SRV parachute failed, sank in Pacific 
1959 Nov 30  1931   102.58 186 x 1575 x 80.65 
1960 Jan 3  1244   99.56 189 x 1286 x 80.65 
1960 Jan 15    98.00 176 x 1147 x 80.6 (RAE) 
1960 Feb 29  1200   92.00 162 x 580 x 80.6 (RAE) 
1960 Mar 2  0156   91.41 172 x 515 x 80.6 
1960 Mar 7  2312   88.03 114 x 239 x 80.7 
1960 Mar 8  0112?  CORONA/Agena reentered 

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