was believed to have obtained orbit with speculation that the protective nose cone over the antennas was ejected just before the Agena fired and that the Agena then rammed into the nose cone, damaging the antennas. Discoverer 1 was a 5.73 m long, 1.52 m diameter cylindrical Agena-A upper-stage capped by a conical nosecone. The satellite casing was made of magnesium. Most of the 18 kg payload, consisting of communication and telemetry equipment, was housed in the nosecone. It included a high-frequency low-power beacon transmitter for tracking and a radar beacon transmitter with a transponder to receive command signals and allow long-range radar tracking. Fifteen telemetry channels (10 continuous and 5 commuted) were used to relay roughly 100 aspects of spacecraft performance. Unlike future Discoverer flights, this one did not carry a camera or film capsule. The satellite launched atop a Thor-Agena rocket. The Thor used liquid oxygen and RP-1 as propellants. The Agena used hypergolic fuels to boost the satellite into polar orbit. This combination of Thor and Agena would become the first booster rocket to send a payload to orbit using 2 stages. Five young men were in the launch crew of this historic mission placing the first spy satellite for the U.S. into polar orbit. The names of the young men, alphabetically, were James Boyle, Mark Jonah, John Lane, Jack Shields, the Test Conductor, and Erwin Warshawsky. Jack was 30 years of age. The others were all in their early to mid twenties. Just months before, in 1958 this same launch crew launched the first Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile from the West Coast of the United States. A couple of years later, Mr. Mark Jonah was an Assistant Test Conductor for the Titan 1 ICBM weapons program at Vandenberg AFB and in 1961, at 27 years of age, was promoted to Test Conductor for the Titan II ICBM weapons system at Vandenberg AFB. He was the youngest person in the U.S. weapons program to be given the responsibility to integrate all the ground support equipment, flight control, guidance, propellant and pressurization systems, launch control, and all other systems and launch a fully operational ballistic missile 5,000 miles down range to target. See also CORONA (satellite) References External links KH-1 at Encyclopedia Astronautica https://web.archive.org/web/20071003082210/http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/Programs/corona.html Reconnaissance satellites of the United States Spacecraft launched in 1959 Spacecraft which reentered in 1959