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- Jan 1, 2000
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Discoverer 14 was launched.
Anyone that has read (or watched) Ice Station Zebra, will know the story.
A US launched satellite, with a payload of cameras on board, the sole mission to take photographs of the 'other side'.
This one wasn't lost in the Arctic though, Discoverer 14 was the start of Operation Corona, designed to replace the need for manned missions over enemy territory using the U2 high altitude reconnaisance plane.
With a successful capture (in air) by a cargo plane carrying a snagging pylon, the capsule was retrieved following its return to earth. The negatives were developed and the military found more useful data within them than the whole of the previous U2 missions combined.
_http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1960-010A
Anyone that has read (or watched) Ice Station Zebra, will know the story.
A US launched satellite, with a payload of cameras on board, the sole mission to take photographs of the 'other side'.
This one wasn't lost in the Arctic though, Discoverer 14 was the start of Operation Corona, designed to replace the need for manned missions over enemy territory using the U2 high altitude reconnaisance plane.
With a successful capture (in air) by a cargo plane carrying a snagging pylon, the capsule was retrieved following its return to earth. The negatives were developed and the military found more useful data within them than the whole of the previous U2 missions combined.
_http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1960-010A