![]() The Thor first stage launched the Agena and its satellite payload into a low orbit, then the Agena boosted the satellite into its final, higher orbit. Thor and Agena vehicles worked together to put satellites into orbit. The long-lived Delta rocket series, based on refinements of the original Thor design, operated through the end of the Cold War and beyond. Though Thor was created quickly as an interim nuclear deterrent, it later became a very successful satellite launch vehicle. It borrowed engine and guidance technology from the developing Atlas program, and Thor IRBMs were operational in Great Britain from 1959 to 1963. Originally, Thor was designed as an intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missile (IRBM) in 1956. ![]() Thor was the first vehicle available to carry Agenas. At first, the Agena vehicle was meant to be launched by Atlas boosters, but the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik - the first satellite - sped up the U.S. The Thor Agena A launch vehicle combined a Thor ballistic missile (similar to the nuclear-armed version on display in the museum's Missile & Space Gallery, but designated SLV-2 or Space Launch Vehicle-2) with an Agena upper stage. The USAF and the Central Intelligence Agency jointly managed Corona, which was known to the public as the Discoverer research satellite program. These satellites, secretly code-named Corona, took pictures of the Soviet Union's bomber and missile bases during the Cold War. Air Force launched the world's first space photo reconnaissance satellites using a rocket like the Thor Agena A on display.
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