1962-004
The first launch in February 1962 was a partial failure since its Agena B engine failed to restart to circularize the orbit; the resulting elliptical orbit was similar to a CORONA flight and led Klass and Kenden to misclassify it. Orbit mass was 1129 kg. Declassified documents indicate that the fuel vent valve opened during the first burn, resulting in loss of propulsion for the second burn, but that the Agena flight was classified as a success and the payload operated from the elliptical orbit, returning good intelligence data according to documents declassified in 2015. In 2016 it was revealed to be a refurbished F-1 payload originally intended as the part of the third SAMOS E-1/F-1 mission. It was also called the Group 0 payload, NRO Mission 7151, and 698BK II (with SAMOS 2 being retrospectively called 698BK I).
Soviet overflight data was downloaded at Vandenberg, New Hampshire and Hawaii.
| FTV 2301 | |||
| Date | Time | Event | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 Feb 21 | 1844 | Launch by Thor Agena B | V Pad 5 |
| 1846 | Thor MECO (T+2:26) | ||
| 1846 | Thor VECO (T+2:35) | ||
| 1846 | Thor sep (T+2:50) | ||
| 1847 | Agena burn (T+3:11) | ||
| 1851 | Agena cutoff (T+7:13) | 207 x 367 x ? (VCR) | |
| 90.0 167 x 374 x 81.97 (RAE) | |||
| 2030?? | Agena B failed to restart | ||
| 1962 Feb 27 | End of operation after 6 days | ||
| 1962 Mar 9 | Reentered | ||
Payload:
- F-0 SIGINT system
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