Nimbus 3
Thorad SLV-2G Agena D
United States Air Force
Mission
Nimbus 3
- Type: Earth Science
- Orbit: Sun-Synchronous Orbit
- Launch Cost: $19,560,000
Identical payload to the Nimbus-B meteorological R&D satellite which was lost due to a malfunction in the booster guidance system less than a year before. It was designed to serve as a stabilized, earth-oriented platform for the testing of advanced systems for sensing and collecting meteorological data. It was lost due to a malfunction in the booster guidance system.
Location
Space Launch Complex 2E
Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
Find the best place to watch the launch from Vandenberg
Space Launch Complex 2E has witnessed the launch of 47 rockets, including 47 orbital launch attempts. While Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA, has been the site for 793 rocket launches.
Vandenberg Space Force Base is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from the Western Range, and also performs missile testing. The United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 30 serves as the host delta for the base, equivalent to an Air Force air base wing. In addition to its military space launch mission, Vandenberg Space Force Base also hosts space launches for civil and commercial space entities, such as NASA and SpaceX.
Rocket
McDonnell Douglas Thorad SLV-2G Agena D
Thor-Agena was a series of orbital launch vehicles. The rockets used Thor first stages and Agena second stages. They are thus cousins of the more-famous Thor-Deltas, which founded the Delta rocket family.
Agency
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947.
