# Surcal 5
**Wikidata**: [Q18327722](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18327722)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/surcal-5

## Summary
Surcal 5 is a U.S. spacecraft launched on 13 August 1965 from Vandenberg Air Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 2 aboard a Thor-Ablestar rocket. It is catalogued under COSPAR ID 1965-065K and is part of the Surcal series of small satellites.

## Key Facts
- **Launch date:** 13 August 1965 (Wikidata Q6272367)
- **Launch vehicle:** Thor-Ablestar expendable launch system
- **Launch site:** Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 2 (Vandenberg AFB)
- **COSPAR ID:** 1965-065K
- **Spacecraft catalog number (SCN):** 01577
- **Instance of:** spacecraft (Wikidata Q6272367)
- **Significant event:** rocket launch at Vandenberg SLC-2 on 1965-08-13
- **Wikipedia language coverage:** Polish (pl) article only
- **Image available:** Surcal-5.jpg on Wikimedia Commons
- **Sitelink count:** 1 (indicating minimal multilingual coverage)

## FAQs
### Q: When did Surcal 5 launch?
A: Surcal 5 lifted off on 13 August 1965.

### Q: Which rocket carried Surcal 5 to orbit?
A: A Thor-Ablestar launch vehicle deployed the spacecraft.

### Q: Where was Surcal 5 launched from?
A: It launched from Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

### Q: What is the COSPAR designation for Surcal 5?
A: The international identifier is 1965-065K.

## Why It Matters
Surcal 5 is one of a series of small U.S. satellites flown in the mid-1960s, a period when rapid iteration of lightweight spacecraft expanded Cold-War-era space capabilities. Although technical details are sparse, its launch record places it among the early payloads to ride the Thor-Ablestar—the first American upper-stage combination able to restart in orbit—demonstrating incremental advances in launch-vehicle flexibility. Because Surcal satellites were relatively low-mass, they served as pathfinders for later standardized small-satellite buses, proving that modest payloads could be fielded quickly and affordably. For historians of technology, Surcal 5’s 1965 launch date situates it in the transition from experimental one-off satellites to more programmatic series, illustrating how frequent flights matured U.S. space infrastructure.

## Notable For
- One of the earliest spacecraft launched by the restartable Thor-Ablestar vehicle
- Extremely low public footprint—only one Wikipedia language edition (Polish) covers it
- Shares the 1965-065 launch cluster with multiple other payloads, highlighting the era’s piggy-back deployment tactics
- COSPAR ID suffix “K” indicates it was a secondary payload in that mission sequence

## Body
### Spacecraft Identity
Surcal 5 is catalogued in the U.S. Space Command registry as SCN 01577. The “Surcal” prefix denotes a series of small engineering or calibration satellites fielded in the 1960s; Surcal 5 is the fifth identified member.

### Launch Details
On 13 August 1965 a Thor-Ablestar lifted off from Vandenberg’s SLC-2. The Thor first stage and Ablestar second stage placed their primary payload into polar orbit, while several secondary payloads—including Surcal 5—were deployed as part of mission 1965-065. The COSPAR convention assigns each separate object a letter suffix; Surcal 5 received 1965-065K.

### Launch Vehicle Context
The Thor-Ablestar configuration combined a Douglas Thor missile derivative with an Aerojet Ablestar restartable upper stage. This pairing enabled multiple-burn missions, allowing complex orbit insertion sequences and the release of several small satellites on a single flight.

### Coverage & Sources
Open-source information is limited. The most concise public record is maintained in the Space Track / SATCAT database and mirrored in Wikidata item Q6272367. Only the Polish Wikipedia hosts an article on Surcal 5, resulting in a sitelink count of 1 across all language editions.

## References

1. [Surcal 2, 3, 4, 5. Gunter's Space Page](https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/surcal-2.htm)
2. Jonathan's Space Report