Thor with a solid fuel top stage

by Jean-Jacques Serra
listing by Gunter Krebs
The first solid fuel top stage associated with Thor in 1965 was Altair, the former third stage of Vanguard equipped with a 3-axis control by Boeing. Called Burner this top stage was also adapted on Thor and other USAF vehicles. Despite Burner 1 used an Altair motor, Burner 2 featured a Thiokol Star-37B motor (TE-M-364-2) derived from the Surveyor lunar retro-rocket. The Burner 2A was a two stage version which second stage Star-37S (TE-M-364-15) provided a slightly weaker thrust than Star-37B.

Thor Altair and Thor Burner were mainly used for US military meteorological programs although they also launched technological satellites.

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Thor with solid top stage launches

# and serial	Launch id	Payload	Launch date	Type	Status (orbit in perigee x apogee x inclination x period)
1, 224		DMSP B4A-01	19 Jan 1965	LV2D Burner1	471 x 822 x 98.8 x 97.7
2, 306		DMSP B4A-02	18 Mar 1965	LV2D Burner1	525 x 764 x 99.1 x 97.7
3, 282		DMSP B4A-03	20 May 1965	LV2D Burner1	567 x 953 x 98.7 x 100.1
4, 213		DMSP B4A-04	10 Sep 1965	LV2D Burner1	649 x 1054 x 98.7 x 101.9
5, 251		DMSP B4A-05	06 Jan 1966	LV2D Burner1	Failure: 2nd stage failed
6, 147		DMSP B4A-06	31 Mar 1966	LV2D Burner1	634 x 933 x 98.6 x 100.6
7, 167		DMSP B4A-07	16 Sep 1966	LV2D Burner2	705 x 891 x 98.5 x 100.9
8, 169		DMSP B4A-08	08 Feb 1967	LV2D Burner2	796 x 868 x 98.8 x 101.6
9, 171	67065	Secor 09 Aurora 1 (P67-1)	29 Jun 1967	LV2D Burner2
10, 266		DMSP B4A-09	23 Aug 1967	LV2D Burner2	834 x 892 x 99 x 102.2
11, 268		DMSP B4A-10	11 Oct 1967	LV2D Burner2	694 x 837 x 99.1 x 100.2
12, 277		DMSP B5A-1	23 May 1968	LV2D Burner2	817 x 904 x 98.9 x 102.2
13, 173		DMSP B5A-2	23 Oct 1968	LV2D Burner2	797 x 855 x 99 x 101.4
14, 279		DMSP B5A-3	23 Jul 1969	LV2D Burner2	791 x 863 x 99 x 101
15, 287		DMSP B5A-4	11 Feb 1970	LV2D Burner2	764 x 974 x 98.7 x 101.6
16, 288		DMSP B5A-5	03 Sep 1970	LV2D Burner2	764 x 874 x 98.7 x 101.3
17, 249		DMSP B5A-6 Calsphere 3, 4, 5	17 Feb 1971	LV2D Burner2	767 x 833 x 98.8 x 100.9
18, 210		SESP-1 (P70-1)	08 Jun 1971	LV2D Burner2	545 x 581 x 90.2 x 95.9
19, 159		DMSP B5B-1	14 Oct 1971	LV2D Burner2A	796 x 877 x 99 x 101.7
20, 153		DMSP B5B-2	24 Mar 1972	LV2D Burner2A	803 x 885 x 98.8 x 101.8
21, 294		DMSP B5B-3	09 Nov 1972	LV2D Burner2A	813 x 872 x 98.6 x 101.8
22, 291		DMSP B5B-4	17 Aug 1973	LV2D Burner2A	811 x 852 x 98.9 x 101.6
23, 207		DMSP B5B-5	16 Mar 1974	LV2D Burner2A	780 x 876 x 98.9 x 101.5
24, 275		DMSP B5B-6	09 Aug 1974	LV2D Burner2A	808 x 870 x 98.8 x 101.7
25, 197		DMSP B5C-1	24 May 1975	LV2D Burner2A	830 x 904 x 98.9 x 102.2
26, 182		DMSP B5C-2	21 Feb 1976	LV2D Burner2A	Partial failure: Thor failed, wrong orbit attained
27, 172		DMSP B5D1-1	11 Sep 1976	LV2F S3B S37B-ISS	820 x 845 x 99
28, 183		DMSP B5D1-2	05 Jun 1977	LV2F S3B S37B-ISS	811 x 869 x 99.2 x 101.7
29, 143		DMSP B5D1-3	01 May 1978	LV2F S3B S37B-ISS	564 x 653 x 97.6 x 96.9
30, 264		DMSP B5D1-4	06 Jun 1979	LV2F S3B S37B-ISS	820 x 838 x 98.8 x 101.1
31, 304		DMSP B5D1-5	14 Jul 1980	LV2F S3B S37B-ISS	Failure: 2nd stage exploded

Notes: All launches from Vandenberg.

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