Bell Aerospace, Model #8001 manufactured in 1957, is on display at the Bell Aircraft Museum in Mentone. This engine, known as the "workhorse of the Space Age," is the first operational storable liquid pump-fed space vehicle rocket engine. The outstanding reliability record (99.7 percent) directly results from the simplicity of its design features. The turbo pump is unsophisticated and rugged with ample design margins. Its mission reliability is 100 percent. The monolithic aluminum thrust chamber with its drilled coolant passages is unique in the rocket field. The Agena is a multi-purpose space vehicle designed to perform ascent, precision orbit injection and space craft missions from low earth to lunar and interplanetary. It has flown on the Thor, Atlas, and Titan boosters. It has flown more than 360 times on 20 different missions, including Discoverer, Ranger, Mariner, Gemini, as well as a large number of Air Force Military missions. The most prominent mission was Gemini in which the Gemini vehicle made the world's first manned rendezvous with the Agena target vehicle. The Agena has placed itself in a variety of programmed orbits, from 100 miles circular to 50,000 miles eccentric. It has also carried into space auxiliary or piggy-back satellites and has sent spacecraft to the Moon, Mars, and Venus. Production began in 1957 and in 1962 Bell produced 54 Agena engines. In 1966 there were 40 flights. The production rate of four per month demonstrated the producability of the engine design. |
