Atlas with a solid fuel top stage

by Jean-Jacques Serra
listing by Gunter Krebs
Some Atlas missiles were reconverted in space launchers by addition of solid fuel top stages. OV-1, the first of these programs enabled to orbit two LEO 1.2 tons satellites. 11 flights took place between 1965 and 1971, with 2 or 3 OV-1 stages.

The Star-37S booster was used to launch meteorology satellites: civilians ( Tiros N and 10 NOAAs) and military (8 DMSPs) between 1978 and 1995. This motor with 658 kg powder provided 43.5 KN thrust during 42 seconds. A similare motor (Star-37E ?) was used for 4 NOSS payloads between 1976 and 1980.

The 2-stage SGS-1 from McDonnell Douglas was used from 1977 to 1981 to launch 8 navigation satellites (NTS 2 and 7 of the first Navstars) SGS-1 weighed 2.5 tons and features 2 Star-37N motors providing each 68.8 kN thrust during 42 seconds. The next generation, SGS-2, weighed 4.5 tons. It featured two Star-48 motors providing each 66.7 kN during 87 seconds. It launched the 4 last preo-operational Navstars. Those two 2-stage launchers could orbit 460 and 860 kg respectively in a 250/21000 km, 63° transfert orbit.

A few specific configurations were also reported. Thus the STP program made use of Atlas with Burner 2 twice, of the Star-17A and of the Altair-3 (Star-20). NTS 1 was launched with a PTS top stage, and Solsat & Geosat with OIS stages. No information is available on the Atlas H top stages which launched 5 payloads betwee 1983 and 1987.

The last launch occured in March 1995 and Titan-2 will take over the launch of those payloads.

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Atlas with solid top stage launches

#	Launch id	Payload	Launch date	Type	Status/Comment (orbit in perigee x apogee x inclination x period)
1, 172D	n/a	OV1-1 ABRES 6 (reentry experiment)	21 Jan 1965	D OV1	Failure
2, 68D	n/a	OV1-3	27 May 1965	D OV1	Failure
3, 34D	65078	OV 1-02 SSP 29 (reentry experiment)	05 Oct 1965	D OV1
4, 72D	66025	OV 1-04 OV 1-05	30 Mar 1966	D OV1
5, 58D	66063	OV 1-08 OV1-7	14 Jul 1966	D OV1	Partial failure: OV1-7 didn't reach orbit
6, 89D	66111	OV 1-09 OV 1-10	11 Dec 1966	D OV1
7, 92D	67072	OV 1-11 /1-12 / 1-86	27 Jul 1967	D OV1	Partial failure: OV1-11 didn't reach orbit
8, 107F	68026	OV 1-13 OV 1-14	06 Apr 1968	F OV1
9, 75F	68059	OV1-16 (Spades) OV1-17 (Cannonball 1)	11 Jul 1968	F OV1
10, 7004	n/a	STP, 10 satellites: Orbiscal 1 OV5-8 Gridsphere 1 & 2 Mylar Ballon 1 Rigidsphere 1 & 2 + 3 more	16 Aug 1968	SLV3 Burner2	Failure: the vehicle was destroyed due to a collapse of the payload fairing
11, 104F	69025	OV1-17 OV1-18 OV 1-19 OV1-17A (Orbiscal 2)	18 Mar 1969	F OV1
12, 76F	71067	OV 1-20 OV 1-21 Rigidsphere 1 & 2 Gridsphere 1 & 2 Cannonball 2 Musketball Mylar Balloon	07 Aug 1971	F OV1
13, 102F	72076	STP (Radcat + Radsat)	02 Oct 1972	F Burner2	530 x 750 x 98.4 x 99.5
14, 69F	74054	NTS-1	14 Jul 1974	F PTS	21600 x 22200 x 63 x 720
15, 71F	n/a	STP (P72-2)	12 Apr 1975	F Star-17A	Failure
16, 59F	76038	NOSS 01	30 Apr 1976	F Star-37E
17, 65F	77053	NTS-2	24 Jun 1977	F SGS1	20300 x 20300 x 63 x 720
18, 50F	77112	NOSS 02	08 Dec 1977	F Star-37E
19, 64F	78020	GPS BI-01	22 Feb 1978	F SGS1
20, 49F	78047	GPS BI-02	13 May 1978	F SGS1
21, 47F	78093	GPS BI-03	07 Oct 1978	F SGS1
22, 29F	78096	Tiros N	13 Oct 1978	F Star-37S ISS	846 x 862 x 98.9 x 102
23, 39F	78112	GPS BI-04	11 Dec 1978	F SGS1
24, 27F	79017	Solwind	24 Feb 1979	F OIS
25, 25F	79057	NOAA 06	27 Jun 1979	F Star-37SISS
26, 35F	80011	GPS BI-05	09 Feb 1880	F SGS1
27, 64F	80019	NOSS 03	03 Mar 1980	F Star-37E
28, 34F	80032	GPS BI-06	26 Apr 1980	F SGS1
29, 19F	80043	NOAA B	29 May 1980	F Star-37S ISS
30, 68E	n/a	NOSS 04	08 Dec 1980	E Star-37E	Failure
31, 87F	81059	NOAA 07	23 Jun 1981	F Star-37S ISS
32, 76E	n/a	GPS BI-07	18 Dec 1981	E SGS1	Failure
33, 60E	82118	DMSP/Block-5D2#1	21 Dec 1982	E Star-37S ISS	815 x 828 x 98.8 x 101.2
34, 6001H	83008	NOSS 05	09 Feb 1983	H
35, 73E	83022	NOAA 08	28 Mar 1983	E Star-37S ISS
36, 6002H	83056	NOSS 06	09 Jun 1983	H
37, 75E	83072	GPS BI-08	14 Jul 1983	E SGS2
38, 58E	83113	DMSP/Block-5D2#2	17 Nov 1983	E Star-37S ISS	823 x 835 x 98.7 x 101.4
39, 6003H	84012	NOSS 07	05 Feb 1984	H
40, 42E	84059	GPS BI-09	13 Jun 1984	E SGS2
41, 14E	84097	GPS BI-10	08 Sep 1984	E SGS2
42, 39E	84123	NOAA 09	12 Dec 1984	E Star-37S ISS
43, 41E	85021	Geosat	12 Mar 1985	E OIS	757 x 814 x 108.1 x 100.6
44, 55E	85093	GPS BI-11	09 Oct 1985	E SGS2
45, 6004H	86014	NOSS 08	09 Feb 1986	H
46, 52E	86073	NOAA 10	17 Sep 1986	E Star-37S ISS
47, 6005H	87043	NOSS 09	15 May 1987	H
48, 59E	87053	DMSP B5D2-3	20 Jun 1987	E Star-37S ISS
49, 54E	88006	DMSP/Block-5D2#4	03 Feb 1988	E Star-37S ISS	820 x 830 x 98.7 x 101.5
50, 63E	88089	NOAA 11	24 Sep 1988	E Star-37S ISS
51, 28E	90031	Stacksat (3)	11 Apr 1990	E Altair-3	760 x 780 x 90 x 100
52, 61E	90105	DMSP/Block-5D2#5	01 Dec 1990	E Star-37S ISS	730 x 850 x 98.9 x 100.7
53, 50E	91032	NOAA 12	14 May 1991	E Star-37S ISS
54, 53E	91082	DMSP B5D2-6	28 Nov 1991	E Star-37S ISS	840 x 860 x 98.9 x 102
55, 34E	93050	NOAA 13	09 Aug 1993	E Star-37S ISS
56, 20E	94057	DMSP B5D2-7	29 Aug 1994	E Star-37S ISS
57, 11E	94089	NOAA 14	30 Dec 1994	E Star-37S ISS
58, 45E	95015	DMSP B5D2-8	24 Mar 1995	E Star-37S ISS

Notes: All launches from Vandenberg.

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