>The satellites > were > equipped with pair of solar panels connected to the engine > compartment > of the Agena. The gas nozzles of the Agena stage were used for > stabilization and orientation of the entire object. Useful lifetime > varied between few hours to few days (maximum for M.8 was 2 weeks > only) > mainly due to the problems with power supply systems (Midas 2 was > lost > on orbit due to stabilization system malfunction). So, are you saying that the Midas satellites were operational for 2 weeks, maximum? Some for only a couple of hours? That seems like an immense expenditure of money at a very low efficiency. Perhaps they were launched at times of hightened alert of nuclear attack. May I assume that there were other Early Warning satellites in orbit during the early 1960's? ------------------------------ Jonathan T. Wojack tlj18@juno.com 39.706d N 75.683d W http://www.angelfire.com/stars2/projectorion 4 hours behind UT (-4) ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Sep 22 2001 - 11:36:13 EDT