OV-2-5 Credit - USAF Museum

OV2 satellites were built for the USAF Office of Aerospace Research, and flew as secondary payloads on Titan IIIC test flights. The satellites had diverse applications.

Northrop Systems Laboratories developed and produced the OV2 satellites for the USAF Office of Aerospace Research. The satellite was a secondary payload for the Titan III-C test flights. Three of the satellites were designed by Northrop, each with diverse applications. The first two OV2 satellites failed to orbit, due to a Titan transtage malfunction. Northrop designed, fabricated, integrated, assembled and tested the OV2 vehicles for the Air Force. On-board experimentation was provided by Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (AFCRL), Air Force Weapons Laboratory (AFWL), and the Air Force Space Systems Division, Aerospace Corporation (SSD/Aerospace). Most subsystem equipment used on the OV2 spacecraft had been demonstrated on previous programs and was readily available for other experiment applications, The spacecraft series was powered by solar energy collected by 4 paddles which extend when the vehicle was in orbit. Span of the basic satellite with paddles extended was approximately 3.7 m. The OV2-5 was a low cost, near-earth space research satellite. It was designed for solar, magnetic, and cosmic ray research in space. On September 28, 1968, it was boosted from the ground by a Titan III launch vehicle into a circular equatorial orbit at an altitude of 22,000 miles above the Earth. It was designed with an operating life in space of at least one year.

Typical orbit: 11986 x 23409 km, 23.8 deg inclinaton. Mass: 189 kg (416 lb).

• 1965 October 15 - Transtage 4 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: LC40. Launch Vehicle: Titan. FAILURE: Partial Failure.
  

• 1965 October 15 - OV2-01 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: LC40. Launch Vehicle: Titan. FAILURE: Partial Failure. Mass: 170 kg (370 lb). Perigee: 708 km (439 mi). Apogee: 791 km (491 mi). Inclination: 32.60 deg. Period: 99.80 min.
  Dual launch with LCS 2; upper stage broke up. Space craft engaged in investigation of spaceflight techniques and technology (US Cat A).

• 1965 October 15 - LCS 2 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: LC40. Launch Vehicle: Titan. FAILURE: Partial Failure.
  

• 1965 December 21 - Transtage 8 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: LC41. Launch Vehicle: Titan.
  

• 1965 December 21 - OV2-03 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: LC41. Launch Vehicle: Titan. Mass: 193 kg (425 lb). Perigee: 321 km (199 mi). Apogee: 22,846 km (14,195 mi). Inclination: 26.80 deg. Period: 399.30 min.
  Upper stage separation failed. Space craft engaged in investigation of spaceflight techniques and technology (US Cat A).

• 1968 September 26 - OV2-05 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: LC41. Launch Vehicle: Titan. Mass: 204 kg (449 lb). Perigee: 35,113 km (21,818 mi). Apogee: 35,745 km (22,210 mi). Inclination: 12.30 deg. Period: 1,417.90 min.
  Environmental research. Space craft engaged in investigation of spaceflight techniques and technology (US Cat A). As of 22 August 2001 located at 128.37 deg E drifting at 4.618 deg E per day. As of 2007 Feb 27 located at 91.48E drifting at 4.631E degrees per day.