Here's Atlas E/F with a Star 37S upper stage. The Star motor was integrated with the satellite so that it could provide coast and roll control. Atlas itself flew suborbital. Star 37S ignited after a five minute coast to apogee to complete the orbital insertion. These put NOAA and DMSP-5D2 weather satellites into sun synchronous orbit from Vandenberg AFB from 1978 until 1995. The last one was the final refurbished ex-Atlas ICBM to fly. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: edkyle99 on 04/09/2015 05:10 pmHere's Atlas E/F with a Star 37S upper stage. The Star motor was integrated with the satellite so that it could provide coast and roll control. Atlas itself flew suborbital. Star 37S ignited after a five minute coast to apogee to complete the orbital insertion. These put NOAA and DMSP-5D2 weather satellites into sun synchronous orbit from Vandenberg AFB from 1978 until 1995. The last one was the final refurbished ex-Atlas ICBM to fly. - Ed KyleI don't agree with pairing the Atlas with the Star 37. The SRM is not part of the launch vehicle nor is it supplied by the launch vehicle.
Was the Star 37 spin stabilized?
I don't agree with pairing the Atlas with the Star 37. The SRM is not part of the launch vehicle nor is it supplied by the launch vehicle.
I'm not sure that's particularly relevant. The large majority of Atlas Agena payloads were integrated with the Agena but no one disagrees with pairing Atlas with Agena.
Some of the more unusual looking Altas types I've seen were the Atlas Able and an Atlas F? with a paddle shaped payload.
I thought Jim's favorite was the Estes D Motor.
Btw. Keep up the good work. The cards are excellent.
Maybe they should have called it the Atlas-unAble. Of the 5 made, like you said, 2 exploded in static testing and 3 failed during launch.
Quote from: Antilope7724 on 04/12/2015 08:04 pmMaybe they should have called it the Atlas-unAble. Of the 5 made, like you said, 2 exploded in static testing and 3 failed during launch.There were only four, with one lost during a static test firing. Astronautix has had this error for years, and Wikipedia has propagated the error. Gunter knows the truth.http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/atlas_able.htmI've never believed that Atlas-Able was inherently flawed, only that it was rushed, underfunded, and probably could have been better-managed. The effort was caught in the middle of the ARPA to NASA handoff, and may have been affected by STL's breakup to create The Aerospace Corporation in 1960. Convair was just learning about orbital launch at the time as well.- Ed Kyle
One-of-a-kind Atlas F Agena D boosted Seasat into near-polar orbit from VAFB SLC 3W on June 27, 1978. For this NASA/JPL mission, which required a wider payload fairing, General Dynamics modified Atlas 23F (originally manufactured in 1961 for ICBM duty), cutting off its tapered LOX tank section and replacing it with a cylindrical section. GD also provided a modified interstage from its Atlas-Centaur program. Lockheed provided the payload fairing, which was a modified leftover ground test article from its Titan 3B/Ascent Agena program. (One wonders why NASA couldn't use a Titan 3B/Agena for this mission.) Agena D fired twice to reach a 780 x 790 km x 108.022 deg orbit, then served as a bus for the innovative synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite. Seasat mapped sea states before suffering an electrical failure 106 days into its mission. This scrounged-up oddball rocket, which worked to perfection, was the final Atlas-Agena. - Ed Kyle