AGENA

The Agena was a rocket upper stage developed by Lockheed for the ill-fated WS-117L US reconnaissance satellite program. It lived on to see extensive use as the upper stage/spacecraft for the Corona spy satellite program and as an upper stage on the Thor, Atlas, and Titan boosters.

An agena outfitted as a Gemini program Agena Target Vehicle.

It was 5 feet in diameter, three axis stabilized (for the benefit of the reconnaissance system cameras) and its Bell 8096 engine produced 16,000 lbs thrust using hydrazine (UDMH) and nitrogen tetroxide as propellants. The engine could be restarted multiple times in orbit. This engine started life as the power plant for the canceled rocket-propelled nuclear warhead pod for the Convair B-58 Hustler bomber. Agena was thus known as Hustler early in its development.

Agena seems to have come in three versions:

; A : 7,000 kg thrust Bell 8048 engine, 120 second burn time, used on Thor and Atlas. ; B : 7,250 kg thrust Bell 8081 engine, 240 second burn time, used on Thor and Atlas. Launched early SAMOS and MIDAS military satellites and the Ranger lunar probes. ; C : Proposed but never built. ; D : 7,250 kg thrust Bell 8096 engine, 265 second burn time, used on Thor, Atlas, and Titan. Launched early KH-7 GAMBIT spy satellites and the two Mariner Mars probes.

Extensive information about Agena is hard to come by; perhaps due to its reconnaissance roots.

Agena may have last flown in 1987.

"AGENA" is a common misspelling or typo for: agama, agenda, agene, agent, angina, arena, augean.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Atlas Agena Launch. Credit: NASA.		Profile of Agena Docking Target. Credit: NASA.
	Agena Firing. Credit: NASA.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Economic History	Italy	Charter service is offered by SAM, an Alitalia subsidiary, and by Air One, while air-taxi service is available from Unijet Italia in Rome and Agena in Milan. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

"AGENA" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "AGENA" is used about 5 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (proper)	100%	5	157,705

The following table summarizes the usage of "AGENA" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified.

Name	Usage/Gender	Usage per 100 million Persons	Rank in USA
Agena	Last name	300	23,267
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Derivations
	Words containing "AGENA": collagenase, collagenases, nonagenarian, nonagenarians, septuagenarian, septuagenarians, sexagenarian, sexagenarians. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-e-g-n"
	-1 letter: anga, gaen, gane.
	-2 letters: aga, age, ana, ane, eng, gae, gan, gen, nae, nag.
	-3 letters: aa, ae, ag, an, en, na, ne.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-e-g-n"
	+1 letter: agenda, agnate, anlage, fanega, galena, manage.
	+2 letters: agendas, agnates, anagoge, anergia, anlagen, anlages, apanage, apogean, arrange, bandage, beanbag, carnage, fanegas, galenas, gamelan, ganache, gateman, guanase, lasagne, magenta, magnate, managed, manager, manages, nametag, pageant, pawnage, sagamen, tanager, tankage, tannage, thanage, vaginae, vantage, wantage.
	+3 letters: abnegate, aerating, agenesia, agential, agminate, alginate, alienage, anagoges, analogue, anearing, anergias, angaries, angelica, angulate, apanages, appanage, argental, arginase, arranged, arranger, arranges, badinage, bandaged, bandager, bandages, bargeman, baronage, beanbags, campagne, carageen, carnages, chantage, comanage, drainage, egomania, endamage, enigmata, fanegada, gadarene, gainable, gamelans, gamesman, ganaches, gardenia, garganey, geranial, gnawable, grandame, gravamen, guanases, gynaecea, gynaecia, hangable, hangared, harangue, indagate, lagnappe, langrage, language, lasagnes, magazine, magdalen, magentas, magnates, magnesia, managers, mangabey, nametags, navigate, paganise, paganize, pageants, paginate, pawnages, phalange, pygmaean, runagate, sangaree, seladang, stagnate, tanagers, tankages, tannages, thanages, vaginate, vantages, wagonage, wantages.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.