Vela 3B

Vela 3B (also known Vela 6, Vela Hotel 6 and OPS 6564^[3]) was a U.S. reconnaissance satellite to detect explosions and nuclear tests on land and in space; the first of the third pair of Vela series satellites; taken together with Vela 3A and ERS 17 satellites.

Vela 3B

Vela satellite.
Operator	USAF
COSPAR ID	1965-058B[1]
SATCAT no.	1459
Spacecraft properties
Manufacturer	TRW
Launch mass	235 kilograms (518 lb)
Start of mission
Launch date	July 20, 1965, 08:27 (1965-07-20UTC08:27Z) UTC
Rocket	Atlas Agena D 2A
Launch site	Cape Canaveral LC-13
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Highly Elliptical
Semi-major axis	117,972 kilometres (73,304 mi)
Perigee altitude	5,310.8 kilometres (3,300.0 mi)
Apogee altitude	169,892.3 kilometres (105,566.2 mi)
Inclination	23.7°
Period	6,721 minutes
Epoch	August 4, 2019 (2019-08-04)[2]
Vela ← Vela 3A Vela 4A →

Launch of Vela 3B.

The secondary task of the ship was space research (X-rays, gamma rays, neutrons, magnetic field and charged particles).

The satellite was rotationally stabilized (2 rps). The ship could work in real time mode (one data frame per second) or in data recording mode (one frame every 256 seconds). The first mode was used for the first 40% of the mission's duration. About 1 transmission was received every 4 hours. The second mode was used until the next pair of Vela satellites were launched.

The ship remains in orbit around Earth.

Instruments

• X-ray and charged particle detector
• Gamma ray and charged particle detector
• Neutron detector
• X-ray scintillation counter
• Solid state detector
• Geiger-Muller counters
• Magnetometer
• Extreme Ultraviolet detector

See also

• Vela (satellite)