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KH-6 LANYARD

LANYARD was an early attempt to gain higher resolution imagery, which flew one successful mission in 1963. The KH-6 camera was programmed to tilt between fore and aft to cover the same land area twice during a photographic pass and thus to acquire stereo coverage. The KH-6 carried a single panoramic camera. The satellites were designed to deorbit a film capsule (referred to as a "bucket")from space with mid-air recovery of the returning capsule by a specially equipped aircraft. Early systems operated with a single bucket. 

+------------+---------+-----------+------------+------------+------------+
| KH         | System  | Successful| Period of  | Amount of  | No. of     |
| Designator |         |  Mission  | Operations | Film       | Primary    |
|            |         |  Numbers  |            | (ft.)      | Camera     |
|            |         |           |            |            | Frames     |
|------------|---------|-----------|------------|------------|------------|
| KH-6       | LANYARD | 8003      | March 1963 | 2,251      | 910        |
|            |         |           | -  July    |            |            |
|            |         |           | 1963       |            |            |
|------------|---------|-----------|------------|------------|------------|

The following table gives a listing of all missions organized according to mission number order. The statement "mission failed" is made under the mission description for missions that failed to acquire imagery. 

---------------|---------------|--------------------------------------|
| KH-6 Mission  | Date          | Short Mission Description            |
|               | Launched      |                                      |
|---------------|---------------|--------------------------------------|
| 8001          | 18-Mar-63     | Mission failed.  First launch of     |
|               |               | KH-6.  No orbit.                     |
|---------------|---------------|--------------------------------------|
| 8002          | 18-May-63     | Second launch of KH-6.  Operation was|
|               |               | successful but no film was used.     |
|---------------|---------------|--------------------------------------|
| 8003          | 31-Jul-63     | Third and final KH-6 mission         |
|               |               | (LANYARD).  Mission was successful   |
|               |               | but image quality was poor.          |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------------------------+

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http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/imint/kh-6.htm
Implemented by Christina Lindborg, 1997 Scoville Fellow
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Originally created by John Pike
Updated Saturday, September 09, 2000 05:00:00 PM