The Bird Watchers: Photo Instrumentation at Vandenberg 1966 USAF; ESSA 3 (TOS-A) Launch (Patreon)

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On the work of the 1369th Photographic Squadron, stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base. United States Air Force film SFP-1398. Documents the launch of the ESSA-3 (or TOS-A) meteorological satellite on October 2, 1966.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_Air_Force_Base

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Vandenberg Air Force Base (IATA: VBG, ICAO: KVBG, FAA LID: VBG) is a United States Air Force Base located 9.2 miles (14.8 km) northwest of Lompoc, California. The installation falls under the jurisdiction of the 30th Space Wing, United States Space Force (USSF).

Vandenberg AFB is a Department of Defense space and missile testing base, with a mission of placing satellites into polar orbit from the West Coast using expendable boosters (Pegasus, Taurus, Minotaur, Atlas V, and Delta IV) and reusable boosters (SpaceX's Falcon 9). Wing personnel also support the Service's LGM-30G Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force Development Evaluation program.

In addition to its military mission, the base also leases launch pad facilities to SpaceX (SLC-4E), as well as 100 acres (40 ha) leased to the California Spaceport in 1995.

Established in 1941, the base is named in honor of former Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESSA-3

ESSA-3 (or TOS-A) was a spin-stabilized operational meteorological satellite. Its name was derived from that of its oversight agency, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA).

Launch

ESSA-3 was launched on October 2, 1966 at 10:34 UTC. It was launched atop a Delta rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The spacecraft had a mass of 132 kilograms (291 lb) at the time of launch. ESSA-3 had an inclination of 100.9°, and an orbited the earth once every 114 minutes. Its perigee was 1,383 kilometers (859 mi) and its apogee was 1,493 kilometers (928 mi).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_(rocket_family)

Delta is an American versatile family of expendable launch systems that has provided space launch capability in the United States since 1960. More than 300 Delta rockets have been launched with a 95% success rate. Only the Delta IV Heavy rocket remains in use as of August 22, 2019. Delta rockets are currently manufactured and launched by the United Launch Alliance...

The original Delta rockets used a modified version of the PGM-17 Thor, the first ballistic missile deployed by the United States Air Force, as their first stage. The Thor had been designed in the mid-1950s to reach Moscow from bases in Britain or similar allied nations, and the first wholly successful Thor launch had occurred in September 1957. Subsequent satellite and space probe flights soon followed, using a Thor first stage with several different upper stages. The fourth upper stage used on the Thor was the Thor "Delta," delta being the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. Eventually the entire Thor-Delta launch vehicle came to be called simply, "Delta."

NASA intended Delta as "an interim general purpose vehicle" to be "used for communication, meteorological, and scientific satellites and lunar probes during '60 and '61". The plan was to replace Delta with other rocket designs when they came on-line. From this point onward, the launch vehicle family was split into civilian variants flown from Cape Canaveral which bore the Delta name and military variants flown from Vandenberg Air Force Base which used the more warlike Thor name. The Delta design emphasized reliability rather than performance by replacing components which had caused problems on earlier Thor flights; in particular the trouble-prone inertial guidance package made by AC Spark Plug was replaced by a radio ground guidance system, which was mounted to the second stage instead of the first. NASA made the original Delta contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company in April 1959 for 12 vehicles of this design...