Corona (satellite) retrieved two days later by a C-119 Flying Boxcar transport plane. This was the first successful return of photographic film from orbit. In comparison, Sputnik 5 was launched into orbit on August 19, 1960, one day after the launch of Discoverer 14. Sputnik 5 was a biosatellite that took into orbit the two Soviet space dogs, Belka and Strelka, and then safely returned them to the Earth . At least two launches of "Discoverers" were used to test satellites for the Missile Defense Alarm System (MIDAS), an early missile-launch-detection program that used infrared cameras to detect the heat signature of
BelKA BelKA BelKA (an acronym from Belarusian: Беларускі Касмічны Апарат, Belarusian Cosmic Apparatus) was intended to be the first satellite of independent Belarus. It was a remote sensing satellite that utilizes the Victoria universal satellite bus, developed by Belarusian researchers and Russian Rocket and Space Corporation RSC Energia for National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus as the final customer of the satellite, which had the capacity to take photos of the Earth surface, with a maximum resolution of 2-2.5 meters. BelKA was launched, along with seventeen other satellites, on July 26, 2006 at 19:43 GMT, however 86 seconds