Atlas Vega
Launch vehicle · USA
Original archive entry. The text, images and links below are kept as they were written.
Credit: NASA
American orbital launch vehicle. Atlas-Vega consisted of an Atlas booster with a storable propellant upper stage. It was planned by NASA at its inception for deep space and planetary missions before the Atlas Centaur was available. Work had already begun when NASA discovered that the CIA and the US Air Force had an essentially identical launch vehicle (Atlas-Hustler, later called Atlas-Agena) in development for the highly classified Corona reconnaissance satellite program. Atlas-Vega was accordingly cancelled.
Related
- Family
- orbital launch vehicle
- Country
- USA
- Spacecraft
- Gemini, Lunar Orbiter
- Agency
- Convair
Chronology
2 events
During 1958
LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas Vega.- NASA sketches two-crew Mercury follow-on spacecraft - .
Nation: USA.
Related Persons: Johnson, Caldwell.
Spacecraft: Gemini.
In 1958 H. Kurt Strass and Caldwell C. Johnson of NASA's Space Task Group at Langley Field, Virginia.sketched a spacecraft design concept for a two-man orbiting laboratory to be launched by an Atlas-Vega booster. This was one of the earliest sketches of a two-crew Mercury follow-on. The Vega stage was dropped in favour of the Agena a year later, and a similar one-crew Mercury-Agena space station was proposed by McDonnell some years later.
1959 May 9
LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas Vega.- High-resolution photographs of the moon using Vega rocket - .
Nation: USA.
Related Persons: Rosen, Milton.
Program: Apollo.
Spacecraft: Lunar Orbiter.
Milton W. Rosen of NASA Headquarters proposed a plan for obtaining high-resolution photographs of the moon. A three-stage Vega would place the payload within a 500-mile diameter circle on the lunar surface. A stabilized retrorocket fired at 500 miles above the moon would slow the instrument package sufficiently to permit 20 photographs to be transmitted at a rate of one picture per minute. Additional Details: here....