Aviation Week: September 3,2001

 https://welib.org/md5/32429b3fbf60bf560220c8c9e5ecdfaa

Gambit 8

 1964-024A

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Mission 4308, KH-7 no. 8 was launched on 1964 May 19 by Atlas Agena D from Point Arguello. The Agena D 4806 stage was not separately cataloged. The orbit was lower than planned when the Agena lost roll control and fired in the wrong direction. The spacecraft separated but the OCV had problems with its on-board systems. Initial orbit was 106 x 352 km; a burn on rev 2 raised perigee to 167 km (or 146 km per the TLE). Starting on Rev 16 the vehicle was unstable. However, 52 targets were observed.

The low orbit provided improved models of atmospheric density in the 90-130 km altitude range, which were quietly released via NASA without explanation of their derivation.

KH-7 8 (SV 958)
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1964 May 19	1921:14	Launch by Atlas Agena D	NMFPA
	1923:30	BECO (T+2:16)
	1925:48	SECO (T+4:34)
	1926:05	VECO (T+4:51)
	1926:07	Atlas sep (T+4:53)
	1927:06	Agena burn (T+5:52)
	1931:08	Agena MECO (T+9:54)	88.2 106 x 352 x 101.0 (VCR)
		Agena 4806 sep from OCV
		Agena 4806 reentered?
1964 May 20	0217	OCV orbit	89.83 146 x 386 x 101.2
1964 May 20	1700	OCV orbit	89.69 141 x 380 x 101.12 (RAE)
1964 May		OCV orbit	89.8 148 x 285 x 101.2 (SATCAT)
1964 May 21		Rev 16 last image
1964 May 21	1107	OCV orbit	88.85 98 x 337 x 101.0
1964 May 21	2157?	SRV deorbit
	2232?	SRV recovered on Rev 34
1964 May 22	0453		88.57 163 x 244 x 101.1
1964 May 22	1700?	Reentered after 2.9d