KerbalX

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 20
• Mods: 2
• KSP: 1.12.5

Mods

• Bluedog DB
• TweakableEverything

The Keyhole program, under the initial guise of Discoverer, had its mixture of successes and failures as part of the fledgling American spy satellite programs. The Corona satellites went through a number of upgrades both adding more powerful, and additional, cameras along with eventually being upgraded to use the Agena-B upper stage. The Agena-B and improvements to the single camera system afforded a greater variety of orbits and finally the KH-4 Corona-M used a pair of panorama cameras instead of just the one allowing for a mural of two images.

The Thor rocket began life as America’s first intermediate ballistic missile, which while having only a relatively short deployment, was the beginning of an entire rocket family using the Thor rocket as the first stage which eventually evolved into the Delta rocket family which is still used today such as the Delta IV Heavy which is used for heavy classified payloads.

The Agena-B was an even more successful upgrade to the sometimes problematic Agena-A and had a number of new capabilities such as an engine that could be restarted multiple times even in the vacuum of space along with a larger fuel task. It was used for 28 launches for a variety of missions including Keyhole, SAMOS, MIDAS, Ranger, and even the first two Mariner missions.

The Fenris rocket is an approximation of the original Thor rocket and is a simple liquid-fueled rocket which should put the rest of the payload into space depending on your chosen altitude. The Belle-B is an approximation of Agena-B converted into a spy satellite with the addition of the SG-4 Cerveza which approximates the KH-4 Corona-M and is used to complete the orbit, make potential orbital adjustments, and finally to de-orbit the satellite and its recovery capsule.

The SG-4 Cerveza, like its real-life counterpart, is a double camera with experiment data collected by a recovery capsule. The recovery capsule collects the data, is jettisoned by the satellite, and uses a short retro rocket to send it into re-entry. It is entirely possible that you may first need to reduce the altitude of the satellite due to the limited nature of the retro-engine. Nevertheless the capability of the satellite has been exhausted once the recovery capsule has been jettisoned so the spent satellite should probably also be de-orbited.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.12.5.