Discoverer 10

Discoverer 10 was an American military reconnaissance satellite as a part of the DISCOVERER program. The satellite was launched on 19 February 1960, at 20:15 GMT, from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Thor-Agena launch vehicle. The booster began exhibiting abnormal pitch oscillations almost immediately at liftoff and Range Safety Officer sent the destruct command at T+56 seconds when allowable safety margins were exceeded. Most of the debris fell in and around launch complex LC 75-3-4. The failure was traced to a malfunction of Thor's guidance computer due to a suspected unauthorized repair modification.

The first recovery of film from a CORONA vehicle occurred with the launching of DISCOVERER on 19 February 1960, but in a manner such that no one boasted of it. The THOR booster rocket began to fishtail not long after it left the launch pad and was destroyed by the range safety officer at 56 seconds after lift-off. The payload came down about 1 600 meters from Pad 5, was located by helicopter, and the recovery was made by a crew that rode to the scene by Jeep.[1]

DISCOVERER VII through DISCOVERER X carried only a quarter of a load of the film (4.5 kilograms or 9.9 pounds) to permit the carrying of additional instrumentation for testing vehicle performance.

DISCOVERER 10 (NSSDCA ID: DISC10) was a US Air Force low-resolution photo surveillance satellite that was destroyed by Range Safety Officer before reaching orbit. The rocket had veered off course shortly after takeoff and was detonated by ground command at an altitude of 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) at T+56 seconds after launch.[2]

The DISCOVERER program was managed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force. The primary goal of the program was to develop a film-return photographic surveillance satellite to assess how rapidly the Soviet Union was producing long-range bombers and ballistic missiles and where they were being deployed and to take photos over the Sino-Soviet bloc to replace the U2 spyplanes. It was part of the secret CORONA program which was also used to produce maps and charts for the Department of Defense and other US government mapping programs. The goal of the program was not revealed to the public at the time, it was presented as a program to orbit large satellites to test satellite subsystems and investigate the communication and environmental aspects of placing humans in space, including carrying biological packages for return to Earth from orbit. In all, 38 Discoverer satellites were launched by February 1962, although the satellite reconnaissance program continued until 1972 as the CORONA project. The program documents were declassified in 1995.