NASA Atlas-Agena

Undated fact-sheet booklet on the Atlas-Agena, the two-stage unmanned launch vehicle behind NASA’s early deep-space program: a modified Atlas first stage (three Rocketdyne MA-5 engines, General Dynamics/Astronautics) topped by a restartable Agena second stage (Bell Aerosystems 8096 engine, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company). Recounts its use launching the Ranger lunar-impact series and the 1962 Mariner 2 Venus flyby, and previews upcoming payloads — a Mariner Mars series, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, and the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory — putting its likely date in 1963 or early 1964, ahead of those launches.