Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Force's newly established surveillance center in Bedford, Mass. It is the surveillance center's job to take all observations on satellites from all friendly observing centers, both optical and electronic, feed them into computers to produce figures that will identify each satellite, describe its orbit and predict its behavior. Says one top official, explaining the cold facts of the space age: "The only way of knowing that a new satellite has appeared is by keeping track of the old ones...
Strayed Capsule. In the Discoverer series, the Air Force's purpose is to fire a satellite into polar orbit, then bring it back by firing a retrorocket that detaches a recovery capsule, slows it and makes it dive into the atmosphere south of Hawaii. Airplanes towing trapezelike devices are to try to catch the parachuting capsule before it hits the water. On Aug. 14 the retrorocket of Discoverer V was fired by a ground signal, but the planes circled in vain. The capsule, an object 33 in. in diameter and weighing just over 300 Ibs., had disappeared...
...Department of Defense explained that the retrorocket had probably fired when it was pointing in the wrong direction. Instead of slowing the recovery capsule and bringing it down, the rocket's thrust had increased the capsule's speed and put it in a different and higher orbit, where it circled for five months before the still-inexperienced Dark Fence watchers noticed...
...first reconnaissance satellite designed to take advantage of this fact. Called Midas (from Missile Defense Alarm System), the satellite carried infrared detectors, which will pick up a missile's hot exhaust trail as it rises above the hazy, moisture-laden lower atmosphere. From a satellite on a high orbit, the heat can be detected several thousand miles away...
Last week's Midas splashed into the Atlantic when the second stage failed to fire. But an operational Midas, presumably flying on a polar orbit, will be able to report a missile trail by radio signals that can be received at great distances by U.S. listening stations. If two or more satellites make a simultaneous report, the missile's position can be automatically computed with good accuracy. The Air Force is convinced that six or eight Midas sentries can keep the whole earth under surveillance, reporting almost instantly when and where a possible hostile missile has been launched...