Rocket roll-out

Gemini-B stacking

Titan IIIC number 3C-9 shown on the pad at LC-40 for the launch of the MOL test flight with a refurbished Gemini 2 reentry module. (NASA)

Titan launch

Description:

• The launch vehicle for this mission was the Titan IIIC – the most powerful rocket then available to the USAF. The Titan IIIC consisted of a pair of three-meter in diameter solid rocket motors strapped to a set of liquid propellant core stages. This pair of five-segment motors generated a total of 10,500 kilonewtons of thrust at lift off giving the Titan IIIC half again the liftoff thrust of NASA’s Saturn IB. The first two stages of the core consisted of a modified Titan II ICBM that had been fitted with new engines and structurally reinforced to handle heavier payloads and extra stages. The final stage of the Titan IIIC was the restartable Transtage. The Transtage, which would remain attached to the OV4-3 MOL test article to provide attitude control and other support functions, would fire its pair of Aerojet AJ-10-138 engines three times to place its various payloads into the proper orbits. While MOL would use the larger Titan IIIM employing a pair of seven-segment motors and a stretched core fitted with improved engines to lift its payload into a polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a Titan IIIC launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida would provide an adequate test of the MOL launch configuration for this mission.