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Published on: AS

August 18, 1960

The fourteenth CORONA mission (mission 9009, known to the public as Discoverer XIV) and the first fully operational mission. The cargo is recovered on the fly by Captain Harold Mitchell’s C-119 (later replaced by the more capable C-130). The film is returned and recovered. It contains detailed photographs of more territory than dozens of U-2 flights combined. Quickly, in the space of just a year, CORONA will assume the role that cracking ENIGMA had in World War II.