* Astronomy

Discoverer 13 was an earth-orbiting satellite designed to test spacecraft engineering techniques and to attempt deceleration, reentry through the atmosphere, and recovery from the sea of an instrument package. It represented the first-ever successful recovery of an object from orbit.
Discoverer 13 was launched on a Thor-Agena from Vandenberg (complex 75-3 on pad 50 on 10 August 1960. At 130 km altitude the first stage separated and the Agena placed the satellite into a 250 x 705 km, 82.9 degree inclination near-polar orbit On 11 August, after 17 orbits, a command was sent from a ground station on Kodiak Island to the spacecraft to start the recovery sequence.
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