KH-6 Lanyard

BYEMAN codenamed LANYARD, the KH-6 was the unsuccessful first attempt to develop and deploy a very high-resolution optical reconnaissance satellite by the United States National Reconnaissance Office. Launches and launch attempts spanned the period from March to July 1963. The project was quickly put together to get imagery of a site near Leningrad suspected of having anti-ballistic missiles. The satellite carried Itek's "E-5" camera developed for the SAMOS program, which had been cancelled. The camera had a focal length of 1.67 m (5 ft 6 in) and could discern objects on the ground 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) in size. The ground swath of the camera was 14 km × 74 km (8.7 mi × 46.0 mi). The satellite weighed 1,500 kg (3,300 lb), and had a single re-entry vehicle in which exposed film was returned to earth for a mid-air aircraft recovery. The KH-6 was manufactured by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Thor-Agena D launch vehicles.