KH-6 Lanyard

BYEMAN codenamed LANYARD, the KH-6 was the unsuccessful first attempt to develop and deploy a very high-resolution optical reconnaissance satellite by the United States National Reconnaissance Office.^[1] Launches and launch attempts spanned the period from March to July 1963. The project was quickly put together to get imagery of a site near Leningrad suspected of having anti-ballistic missiles.^[2]

The satellite carried Itek's "E-5" camera developed for the SAMOS program, which had been cancelled. The camera had a focal length of 1.67 m (5 ft 6 in) and could discern objects on the ground 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) in size. The ground swath of the camera was 14 km × 74 km (8.7 mi × 46.0 mi). The satellite weighed 1,500 kg (3,300 lb), and had a single re-entry vehicle in which exposed film was returned to earth for a mid-air^[3] aircraft recovery.

The KH-6 was manufactured by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Thor-Agena D launch vehicles.^[4]

Launches

KH-6 8001 was launched from Vandenberg AFB aboard a Thor-Agena D launch vehicle (Thor 360)^[5] at 00:00:00 GMT on 18 March 1963. It was the first of three KH-6 LANYARD launches. This mission was a failure because the Agena guidance system failed.^[6]^[2]

KH-6 8002 was launched from Vandenberg AFB aboard a Thor-Agena D rocket (Thor 364)^[5] at 22:34:00 GMT on 18 May 1963. This was the second launch KH-6 LANYARD satellite. This spacecraft achieved orbit but the Agena rocket failed in flight and no film data were returned.^[7]^[8]

KH-6 8003 was launched from Vandenberg AFB aboard a Thor-Agena D rocket (Thor 382)^[5] at 00:00:00 GMT on 31 July 1963. This was the third and final KH-6 (LANYARD) mission that was designed to provide very high-resolution photos (61 cm), but the best resolution achieved was 183 cm, the same as KH-4B, so LANYARD was discontinued after this 3rd flight in 1963. The camera failed after 32 hours.^[9] The mission was deemed a success but the image quality was poor.^[10] The film canister contained over 2,250 feet of film with 910 photographic frames.^[3]