Credit: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The missile engine compartment of the Agena A rocket. The top of the Agena A rocket’s aft side. Paint peeling and cracking on the aft nozzle of the Agena B rocket. Credit: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The simulation references over one hundred McDonnell Aircraft engineering drawings of the Gemini spacecraft and Agena Target Docking Adapter, and photographs from NASA and our own archives, to accurately depict the in-flight appearance of these spacecraft. Here is what the rockets look like today: The nose cone of the Agena B rocket. The Air Force does not yet have funding for the restoration, according to the proposal. In accompanying documentation, the Air Force makes clear the vintage wheels the rockets sit on are not to be replaced. The first successful launch was on February 28, 1959, launching Discoverer-1. The first attempted launch of a Thor-Agena was in January 1959. They are thus cousins of the more famous Thor-Deltas, which founded the Delta rocket family. The rockets used Thor first stages and Agena second stages.
AGENA SPACECRAFT SERIES
Now, as part of an effort to restore the rockets, the Air Force is looking for a small business to repair damaged sheet metal, repaint the boosters, and emblazon the rockets with their original insignias and stenciling. Thor-Agena was a series of orbital launch vehicles. In a series of photos posted to the Federal Business Opportunities web site in July, the rockets are shown with peeling and cracking paint and patches of corrosion. The Gemini Agena Target Vehicle was designed to be launched into Earth orbit prior to a Gemini mission and used for rendezvous and docking practice.
Years of outdoor display in what the service describes as “a semi-marine atmosphere,” means the rockets are in need of new paint and some general freshening up.
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