Word: thor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Test launchings of half a dozen new satellites and space vehicles, including the use of the new Thor-Delta rocket to send an instrumented payload to the vicinity of the moon...
Manufactured for Lockheed by Bell Aircraft Corp., the Agena rocket has been used in its original single-shot version as the second stage of the Thor rocket, which has successfully injected six of the eight Discoverer satellites into polar orbits. The Agena is designed to ignite when high in the vacuum of space. This is not easy because few fuels will ignite in a vacuum. Bell gets around the problem by using hypergolic fuels (unsymmetrical dime-thylhydrazine and inhibited red fuming nitric acid) that ignite spontaneously as soon as they come in contact. After the first stage burns...
...rubbery solid fuel that was Thiokol's first contribution to rocketry. It has grown into 84 smallish structures scattered over miles of desert, but it still reflects the basic simplicity that is solid fuel's chief advantage over liquid. The liquid-fuel rocket engines that push the Thor and Atlas must be static-tested with their flames shooting downward, which requires massive, well-anchored test stands to resist the upward thrust. Their liquid fuel and oxidizer call for pumps, tanks, valves and tubing. Instruments watch every part of their twisted intestinal tract and report to a thick-walled...