Quote from: Star One on 10/08/2012 10:41 pmis it possible there were also variants of the KH-9 that haven't been disclosed yet?Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean other ones that flew, the answer is no. There's a lot of material that has been declassified, including the histories of the USAF group that did the recovery of the reentry vehicles (and I'll admit that I have not looked at those at all), and there's no indication of other spacecraft that ejected reentry vehicles that have not been declassified.As for variants of the KH-9, they have only released a small number of documents. It is still somewhat murky trying to figure out what upgrades were made and when. And we still don't know if they applied anything other than a KH-9 designation to the spacecraft (in other words, was there a KH-9A, KH-9B? My suspicion is no). But I think it is fair to say that we now have about 95+% of the program declassified. There are very few mysteries left.
is it possible there were also variants of the KH-9 that haven't been disclosed yet?
I have something that indicates that a major upgrade to the Block III involved the electronics. They developed a new fault tolerant system that gave them more ability to deal with a camera problem/failure. I don't have a lot of details on it, and it's rather obscure (and kind of boring), but apparently it was a significant electronics upgrade.
as well as color photos of a small NASA transport aircraft rigged for satellite recovery tests, ca 1978.
Does anyone have any information on a possible version identification or contract term used by Perkin-Elmer called "Redirection" in addition to the Block IDs? What could "Redirection" refer to? I am referring to the following three quotes from page 172 in the Perkin-Elmer History file."...and the program was redirected for a second time.""The Hexagon program was 10 years old and in full bloom. S3 and the large looper were incorporated into the sensor subsystem and Redirection III stretched out the program to one flight a year of six months' duration.""In 1978 both Redirection IV and Block IV were negotiated which further extended the program by two additional vehicles and four additional years."
Quote from: Blackstar on 10/19/2012 07:11 pmas well as color photos of a small NASA transport aircraft rigged for satellite recovery tests, ca 1978.Interesting, which one ? C-119 ?
Quote from: Jester on 10/23/2012 10:38 amQuote from: Blackstar on 10/19/2012 07:11 pmas well as color photos of a small NASA transport aircraft rigged for satellite recovery tests, ca 1978.Interesting, which one ? C-119 ?No, not a C-119. I doubt that any of them were flying in the 70s. It looked something like this C-23. But it was rather boxy. It's a civilian aircraft and the kind of thing used on very small routes to carry cargo. I'd know it if I saw a picture, but haven't found it yet.
Geeze, don't get your fingers caught in that ... Ouch, kinda like fishing except that sardine really was a whopper!
That's it. Except that the rear fuselage was open. There was a dented KH-9 bucket mounted horizontally in there, and some rigging. Several photos of that. There was also a photo of about four guys standing in front of the plane. Now these were just a handful of photos, no description, but there might have been a description of what they were doing somewhere else and I did not see it. My guess is that they were testing out a new winch or braking system. When the C-130 snagged the parachute lines, the cable was suddenly hooked onto a very heavy object. The cable played out and had to be slowed. At least early on they did this manually, with the crew chief with his hand on a braking mechanism to slow it down as it played out. Once they stopped it, he could then winch it in. They might have eventually gone to an automatic system.
Four kinds of rockets--two-stage Nike Orion,single-stage Orion, Super Arcas and Super Loki--willbe used to carry the ozone measuring instruments intothe stratosphere. The rocket flights will coincidewith orbiting satellite overpasses of Wallops for comparisonof the rocket measurements with those of thesatellites. Meteorological rockets and balloons, aswell as ground based equipment, also will be collectingozone data.New ground measuring techniques to determine thedistribution of ozone in the stratosphere will betested .Several of the rocket payloads will be recoveredin mid-air by the Wallops Skyvan aircraft.
Indeed. It may be gory, Wes Craven or Saw style...
Document not available on NTRS:Evaluation and operation of Wallops Flight Center Mid-Air Retrieval System on a Skyvan aircraft