![]() ![]() ![]() It wasn’t until October 2014 that I processed these three year old images of 50 year old rockets. Over the years I have developed better techniques and I knew in 2011 that my processing technique was developing and making progress. ![]() I captured the Agena in September 2011 with a 10 inch reflecting telescope on video. Thanks to the considerable altitude, it is still in orbit after 50 years. Exactly at that altitude we find the old spent Agena upper stage from this launch. The two satellites were released at an alititude of around 800 kilometers. Their purpose was probably to test military spaceflight technology. On January 19, 1964, a Thor Agena D SLV-2 rocket lifted up from the Vandenberg SLC2W complex with the two military satellites OPS 3367A and OPS 3367B. The Agena rocket in the picture is pretty much the same type as used for the Gemini flights but without the docking adapter and in its original configuration. In 1966, Neil Armstrong and David Scott performed the first ever docking of two spacecraft in orbit with Gemini-8 and the Agena. The Agena-D rocket upper stage is best known from the Gemini-era as the Agena Target Vehicle (ATV). I was intrigued by the fact that the technique used to photograph this object wasn’t actually available at the time of launch. That is what the following pictures are about. Imagine seeing the remains of a rocket launch from 50 years ago, as a fossil of spaceflight history in orbit. The Thor Agena B with Discoverer 37 on the launch pad Jan. ![]()
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