Talk:CORONA (satellite)

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Misunderstood Reference to Program 417

Under the CORONA launch listings, an erroneous note is listed: "The imagery from this mission was used by NASA meteorologist Captain Houston as the basis for the rerouting of Apollo 11's splashdown site." CORONA did not (directly) provide meteorological imagery; this was left to Program 417 (DMSP). Since the source is an opinion piece, here is the NRO history article correctly referencing DMSP instead of CORONA: http://www.nrojr.gov/teamrecon/res_ba/articles/Art%201%20Rescue%20of%20Apollo%2011%20Rev4.pdf TDRSS (talk) 16:13, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects needed

The phrases Corona program and Corona project should redirect to the article. These would be most convenient to people who want to find or hyperlink to this article, and after all, this series of satellites were a program or a project with dozens of launches, just like the Explorer project, the Tiros program, the Transit program, the Sputnik program, the Mariner program, the Viking program, the Voyager program, the Mercury project, the Gemini project, the Apollo program, Apollo project, the Vostok program, the Soyuz program. and so forth.98.67.97.108 (talk) 20:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Salt plugs on the CORONA buckets

I recalled watching shows on either TLC or Discovery that mentioned the CORONA buckets have salt plugs that would dissolve after 24 hours being in the water, thereby sinking it and preventing it from falling it into the wrong hands. If this is true, it allows the buckets to be recovered in the water if they've missed using the mid-air recovery. Calyth 15:12, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

True. This is mentioned in Peebles' Corona book as well as maybe Day's. A photo exists with a sample recovery. The photo used in various texts is just off the coast of Santa Barbara (those those geo-knowledgable of the rock formations in the background and the firms (3) who had offices there). 143.232.210.38 (talk) 23:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC) --enm[reply]

True. Air Force Satellite Control Facility's 6594th Aerospace Test Wing (Hickam AFB,HI) only lost one film "bucket" to "plug destruct". It's now under 17,000 ft of water somewhere in the Pacific Trench. The first thing our Navy Seals did when they went into the water from the CH-53's was to attach a flotation collar to the RV, preventing payload loss. Sometimes we had a submarine, from Pearl Harbor, in the recovery zone to grab RVs if they sunk. Early buckets weighed 1600 lbs; later ones were lighter, but each satellite carried several of them. Major,USAF(ret.) 66.59.230.158 (talk) 23:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Corona, New Mexico

Possibly this project was named after Corona, New Mexico, the city nearest to the Roswell Incident. The Roswell incident might have been a failed attempt to retrieve film from a V-2 launched into space from White Sands.

It was well known from Eugene Saenger's work that a rotating disk allowed for an even distribution of heat during reentry. What they did not know until around 1949 and the work of Hannes Alfven, was the large amount of re-entry heat due to ionization.

Frizb

CORONA project's name was a codeword randomly generated by the NSA. Codewords are always written in all uppercase letters. They are not acronyms! Major, USAF(ret.)66.59.230.158 (talk) 23:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Normally, I wouldn't respond to comments as the two above, but I must present a source: National Reconnaissance Office: The CORONA Story, as released and redacted by the National Reconnaissance Office, written by two of the main guys in the program. Page 21 of the monograph states:

"[C]overt Thor-boosted satellite portion of WS-ll71, which was renamed Project CORONA by the CIA. (George Kucera, of Bissell's staff, an inveterate cigar smoker, was inspired to select this name as he glanced at a cigar wrapper.)" TDRSS (talk) 04:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected a photo caption

The photo caption for the constantly rotating camera lens system (both J-1 and J-3) was incorrectly listed as "reciprocating." One of the means of improving the resolution of the camera system was to reduce vibration. The upgrade from the earlier reciprocating camera lens system was beneficial in this regard. DrGeneNelson (talk) 04:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC) Docent, National Air And Space Museum, Washington, DC[reply]

What happened to them?

What happened once they dropped the film, did the satellite remain in orbit? 82.46.109.233 (talk) 14:26, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They surely decayed and reentered the atmosphere. Lifetime at those low altitudes is not long due to atmospheric drag but it seems to depend on orbit, size of vehicle, and other things. See http://www.ips.gov.au/Category/Educational/Space%20Weather/Space%20Weather%20Effects/SatelliteOrbitalDecayCalculations.pdf for details. Mnp (talk) 00:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Launch section dates are ordered wrong.

If the 'Launches' tables are sorted by date, they do not arrange themselves in the right order. I get the following when I click to a chronological order:

Mission No. Cover Name Launch Date NSSDC ID No. Alt. Name Camera Notes R&D Discoverer 3 03 Jun 1959 DISCOV3 1959-F02 none Failed to orbit 9004 Discoverer 7 07 Nov 1959 1959-010A 1959 KAP KH-1 Mission failed. Failed to achieve orbit.[citation needed] R&D Discoverer 2 13 Apr 1959 1959-003A 1959 GAM none First three-axis stabilized satellite; capsule recovery failed 9002 Discoverer 5 13 Aug 1959 1959-005A 1959 EPS 1 KH-1 Mission failed. Power supply failure. No recovery. 9003 Discoverer 6 19 Aug 1959 1959-006A 1959 ZET KH-1 Mission failed. Retro rockets malfunctioned negating recovery. 9005 Discoverer 8 20 Nov 1959 1959-011A 1959 LAM KH-1 Mission failed. Eccentric orbit negating recovery. R&D Discoverer 21 Jan 1959 1959-E01 1959-E01 none Mission Failed. Failed to achieve orbit 9001 Discoverer 4 25 Jun 1959 DISC4 1959-U01 KH-1 Mission failed. Failed to achieve orbit. R&D Discoverer 1 28 Feb 1959 1959-002A 1959 BET none First object in polar orbit 9006 Discoverer 9 04 Feb 1960 DiSC9 1960-F01 KH-1 Mission failed. Failed to achieve orbit.

And so on. I appreciate the launches are in the right order on first load, but being wrong when a user clicks on the date option means that the table becomes worthless without a reload (presuming the user notices it) if they try sorting by any other option. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justicia311 (talk • contribs) 23:12, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Lede

"The name of this program is sometimes seen in pre-ASCII all caps as "CORONA", but in mixed caps, its actual name "Corona" was a codeword, not an acronym."

That is a contender for the most muddled sentence in the entire Wikipedia. All caps but in mixed caps? The name was Corona in mixed case, but not an acronym? And why is ASCII mentioned? 91.10.8.184 (talk) 20:49, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"CORONA" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect CORONA. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 12#CORONA until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 05:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect picture of the CORONA Satellite Index Camera Lens.

The picture of the lens in the article shows a lens manufactured by Canon, "Made in Japan". https://wiki.eso.workers.dev/wiki/File:Corona_Satellite_Index_Camera_Lens.jpg Canon is not mentioned anywhere, the article tells us "The cameras were manufactured by the Itek Corporation.[13]", referencing to https://wiki.eso.workers.dev/wiki/Itek , which in turn also does not mention any involvement with the Japanese lens manufacturer Canon. Either the picture is not correct, or there is vital information that is missing or is incorrect in the text and references regarding the lens used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.220.44.63 (talk) 14:55, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]