From: jack@rml.UUCP (jack hagerty)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: More Titan Sources
Date: 10 Apr 92 20:48:21 GMT
Reply-To: jack@rml.com (jack hagerty)
Organization: Robotic Midwives, Ltd.

In article <35091@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> hughes@gary.enet.dec.com (Gary Hughes - VMS Development) writes:
>
>You'll notice that I said 'Agena-based'. In most cases the Agena stage was part
>of the spacecraft and I would guess that the external dimensions of the Agena
>and it's payload fairing are classified.

Um, right. [treading on thin ice here]. I guess you missed my original 
post on this subject. My first job out of college was as flight support 
for one of these vehicles and I'm just now, 14 years after leaving the 
program, getting around to building a flying model of it.

You're right that our vehicle was Agena based. It (the Agena) 
provided power and orbit control for the "FSVS" (Forward Satellite 
Vehicle Section) while on orbit. While the FSVS is uh, as you say, 
um, classified, the Agena is anything but. I got all of its dimensions 
out of my old (completely unclassified) training manuals. As for the 
FSVS, one of the last things I did when leaving was to get permission 
from the Program Office to take the proportions of the exterior shape 
(not the actual dimensions, just proportions; which is all you need to 
make a model anyway). Their reasoning was that anyone within 50 miles 
of Lompoc could watch this thing take off and take pictures of it, so 
its external shape isn't classified. As you can see, I've been planning 
this model for a long time!
 
>For the lower stages you could use the dimensions of the Titan 3D core for the
>3B or the 34D core for the 34D. For the 3B, you could probably also use the 3C
>external dimensions which would be much easier to find. They should be the same
>(the 3C uses a different guidance package to the 3B/D, but I don't think this
>changes external dimensions).

Thanks for the tips, but a few minutes with "Janes" provided me with 
all of the basic dimensions.

>Beyond that, some color pix of 3B launches might help, depending upon the 
>level of detail you need.

I have a color slide of a photo of our vehicle taking off. All of 
the Air Force officers in our group got a huge (18x24) ceremonial 
photo when they rotated out while all we civilians got was a firm 
handshake :-( Fortunately, I was friends with one of the Leutennants 
in the "going away" committee and he let me take one home to copy. 
The quality isn't good enough, however, to see troughs and piping and 
whether some of those irregular round spots are surface markings or 
stage separator exhaust ports, etc.

- Jack


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