Way back in early 1964, shortly after the 1963 US space program completed, some government agency or other under the auspices of newly installed president Lyndon B. Johnson produced a list of the 60 spacecraft (if I remember correctly) orbited by the United States in 1963. Included in that list, for the final launch of the year, were these spacecraft: 1963-055A Classified USAF payload Thor Agena D December 21, 1963 VAFB 1963-055B Classified USAF payload 1963-055C Classified USAF payload and they were first listed in the Spring 1964 TRW Space Log, with orbital elements for the first two spacecraft only. The third was listed by Space Log as "status unknown." The next issue of Space Log to carry listings for 1963 had dropped 1963-055C, and it never appeared in that publication again. In the last Space Log (1991) to list 1963 launches, the vehicle had been corrected to TAT Agena D, but neither 55A nor 55B was given a name. Only two objects have been catalogued for this launch, namely, 55A (#718) and 55B (#719), which the RAE table calls Discoverer 74 and Hitchhiker 3, and Jos Heyman lists as KH 4-26 and Hitchiker-4 [sic], respectively. Whatever they're called, it's pretty clear that 55B was a piggyback payload on 55A. My question is, was there a second piggyback on 55A that didn't or failed to deploy? This would account for the discrepancy between the government report and the satellite catalogue. Or was this just an error plain and simple? I've been bothered by this little conundrum off and on for a few decades now, and I wonder whether anything official has ever appeared about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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