The Agena was an all-around workhorse that served both as the second stage for Thor and Agena rockets
Quote from: plutogno on 05/18/2016 11:09 amminor correction to Blackstar's articleQuoteThe Agena was an all-around workhorse that served both as the second stage for Thor and Agena rockets you surely meant Thor and AtlasBrain glitch.Fixed now. Thanks.Even after looking at it over five times, I missed that.
minor correction to Blackstar's articleQuoteThe Agena was an all-around workhorse that served both as the second stage for Thor and Agena rockets you surely meant Thor and Atlas
Centaur came very close... Well if you count Atlas V as a different vehicle, then three, almost four.
Don't forget Titan! Titan 3B/Agena. Maybe a Star motor has flown on top of three different launch vehicles, but I can't think of a liquid stage that pulled the trick except Agena.
Maybe a Star motor has flown on top of three different launch vehicles, but I can't think of a liquid stage that pulled the trick except Agena. - Ed Kyle
I still keep hoping they'll declassify something about the first generation of NOSS satellites as they are something of an enigma.
Interesting. It seems to me that most civilian high-resolution satellites use flat antennas too. If I recall my SAR lessons correctly, it's because antennas that are short in one direction have a higher resolution when doing SAR.
You may be conflating two things: Classical reflector (parabolic section) antennas are often short in one direction. On Earth, that can be useful for a search radar: your radar beam is narrow but high, covering all altitudes at once, but giving good resolution in the horizontal direction. When you use a phased array, all that no longer applies. You control the beam by coordinating the transmission of each element, using all or part of the array as you wish. Square or rectangular is no longer an issue.