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Writer's pictureAeryn Avilla
Aug 2310 min read

Can You Hear Me Major Tom: America's First Communications Satellites

Updated: 14 minutes ago

Though the Soviet Union put the first artificial object and the first living creature into orbit at the start of the Space Race, the United States would claim its first "first" of the Space Race with a communications satellite and would dominate the development and deployment of communications satellites for years to come. Let's take a look at how the US learned to "talk" in space.


Echo 1 satellite in a Navy hangar

The 100-foot-wide Echo 1 inside a Navy hangar in North Carolina (NASA)


In the October 1945 issue of the technical magazine Wireless World, an article titled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays" written by a member of the British Interplanetary Society named Arthur C. Clarke discussed the concept of global communication through the use of satellites in geosynchronous orbit. He wrote that three satellites in orbit with an altitude of roughly 22,236 miles (35,786 km) and spaced 120 degrees apart could provide continuous communications around the globe. At this altitude, satellites orbit at the same angular velocity as Earth's surface, so they remain above a fixed point on the ground at all times. This type of orbit is called geosynchronous. A geostationary orbit is a circular geosynchronous orbit around the equator and is sometimes called a Clarke orbit.


Clarke also correctly predicted that Nazi V2 rocket technology would be further developed to put satellites into orbit and the use of satellites in meteorology [1]. Just under twenty years after the publication of "Extra-Terrestrial Relays", NASA would launch the world's first geostationary communications satellite, but more on that later.


Clarke's drawing of a three-satellite global communications system

Clarke's drawing of a three-satellite global communications system (Arthur C. Clarke / Wireless World)

Moonbounce

The history of communications satellites dates back to early 1946, more than ten years before Sputnik orbited the Earth. Project Diana was a US Army Signal Corps (USASC) effort that bounced radio waves off the moon for the first time. It took 2.5 seconds for the radar signals to travel from Camp Evans Signal Laboratory at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey to the Earth's only natural satellite and back, a technique they named "Moonbounce". It is today called Earth-Moon-Earth communication and is still used by HAM and amateur radio operators. Although Project Diana had limited military potential, it was the birth of radar astronomy and the start of the Space Age. The creation and future implementation of this technology was a crucial first step in further space exploration, especially with the development of communications satellites.


Project Diana Moonbounce newspaper cartoon

Cartoon from the Tennesseean newspaper (library.nashville.org)


The Talking Atlas

A decade before Apollo 8 wished a Merry Christmas to everyone on the good Earth in 1968, President Dwight D. Eisenhower used a "unique means" to do the same. The world's first communications satellite made its debut at the end of 1958: SCORE— Signal Communications by Orbital Relay Equipment— was developed by the USASC and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and provided the basis for all future communications satellites.

Atlas B rocket with SCORE payload
Atlas B SCORE (NASA)

The primary objective of the mission was actually to prove the Atlas missile could put an object into orbit, so SCORE became the first of hundreds of satellites launched by an Atlas vehicle. This was an incredibly bold move by the US since the experimental Atlas was not the most reliable launch vehicle in the country's arsenal. The 71.8 foot (21.90 m) long, 10 foot (3.05 m) wide Atlas upper stage was the largest object put into orbit at the time.


SCORE launched on December 18, 1958 onboard an Atlas-B launch vehicle from Launch Complex 11 on Cape Canaveral. During its 35 days of operation, it delivered President Eisenhower's Christmas message (recorded on a tape recorder) to countries all around the world: "Through this unique means I convey to you and all mankind, America's wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere." The success of SCORE "proved that satellites could receive signals from one location on Earth and immediately retransmit to another, as well as receive a signal, store it on an onboard recorder, and then transmit on command from the ground" (NASM).


SCORE satellite backup payload

SCORE backup payload (Smithsonian)


Delivering a Message

SCORE was followed by Courier, another USASC/ARPA project. Courier 1B was the first active repeater communications satellite and the first communications satellite powered by solar cells. It launched from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex-17 onboard a Thor-Able-Star on October 4, 1960 (exactly three years after the launch of Sputnik). After completing one orbit, a teletype message to the United Nations General Assembly from President Eisenhower was transmitted from Fort Monmouth to the satellite and relayed to a ground station in Salinas, Puerto Rico. Courier 1B was the only successful Courier satellite.


Courier 1B satellite

Courier satellite with unidentified individual (Smithsonian)


The Flight of the Satelloon

Project Echo produced NASA's first communications satellite and the world's first passive communications satellite. A passive communications satellite reflects the signal from one location toward the direction of the receiver in another location, bouncing the signal off the satellite's surface. It began as an experiment put forth by Bell Telephone Laboratories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was transferred to NASA when the agency acquired JPL at the end of 1958.


Echo 1 is best remembered today for being a huge "satelloon", a combination of balloon and satellite. Though Echo 1 was not the first inflatable satellite (that distinction goes to Beacon, a failed atmospheric density experiment), its popularity in the early 1960s was due to its 100-foot (30.48 m) diameter, making it visible at night to the naked eye. Both Echo satellites were inflatable mylar spheres manufactured by the G.T. Schjeldahl Company in Minnesota. They were filled with gas once in orbit and powered by nickel-cadmium batteries charged by solar cells. Unlike SCORE and Courier, Echo could not operate as a transceiver but only reflect signals from a ground station back down to Earth.


A spare Echo balloon satellite in its launch canister

A spare Echo satelloon in its launch canister (Smithsonian)


Two ground stations were used during Project Echo. To the west was JPL's Goldstone facility in the Mojave Desert in California. To the east was Bell Lab's Crawford Hill facility in Holmdel, New Jersey. There were three ways in which satellite acquisition and tracking were achieved: automatic radar, digital slave, and optical. Radar was used only to track Echo and not for acquisition. Digital slave was a computer system that took tracking data from NASA's Minitrack Network and controlled the antenna at Goldstone or Crawford Hill via commands [2]. Optical tracking used telescopes and television cameras mounted to antenna which would display images of the satellite to an operator who would then position the antenna to track the spacecraft. This was the preferred method of tracking the satellite but could only be used at night when the sun reflected off its shiny surface.


On August 12, 1960, Echo 1 launched on a Thor-Delta from Launch Complex-17. After reaching orbit, it successfully relayed a microwave transmission from California to New Jersey and cemented its place in history as the world's first passive communications satellite. Echo 2 followed on January 25, 1964 onboard a Thor-Agena. Two key differences between this satellite and its predecessor were its size and its orbit: Echo 2 was 135 feet (41.1 m) in diameter and operated at an inclination of 81.5°, a nearly polar orbit. During the satellites' combined nine years of operation, they transmitted radio, telephone, and television signals across the continent and the world, as well as acquired data on atmospheric density and solar pressure and even demonstrated the technical feasibility of satellite triangulation, which was in its infancy.


Echo 1 satellite

Echo 1 fully inflated inside a Navy hangar in North Carolina (NASA)


Magic Star

With the success of developing passive communications satellites under its belt, it was now time for NASA to develop the world's first active communications satellite. But the agency wouldn't do it alone. Telstar I, a beachball-sized spacecraft, was developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and funded by AT&T and was part of a multi-national agreement with the United Kingdom and France. Not only was Telstar I the first privately-sponsored space mission, but also the very first commercial payload in history.


Telstar I had a diameter of 34.5 inches (87.3 cm) and a weight of 171 pounds (77.56 kg). 3,600 solar cells on its surface charged its nickel-cadmium batteries. Six Telstar ground stations were built in the US, Canada, the UK, France, West Germany, and Italy.


Telstar I backup satellite

Telstar I backup spacecraft (Smithsonian)


On July 10, 1962, Telstar I launched atop a Delta rocket from Launch Complex-17. The satellite had an orbital period of 2.5 hours and could only transmit between the US and Europe for 20 minutes each orbit. On July 11, it transmitted a picture of an American flag outside Bell Labs' Andover Earth Station in Maine to France, though this could not be viewed by the public. The ultimate test was completed on July 23 when Telstar transmitted the first public live transatlantic television signal. Broadcast in seven languages to sixteen European countries plus the US and Canada, the program relayed footage of American cities, President John F. Kennedy's press conference, and perhaps most American of all, a Chicago Cubs—Philadelphia Phillies baseball game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois.


Unfortunately for Telstar, a high-altitude nuclear bomb test (Starfish Prime) was conducted the day prior to launch and energized the Van Allen Belt. The satellite stopped functioning in November and after a reactivation in January 1963, ceased operations in February.


English instrumental rock group the Tornadoes released a single named after the satellite in August 1962. Joe Meek, the writer and producer of the song, also composed a vocal version with the title "Magic Star". "Telstar" hit # 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.


CBS broadcast of Telstar I's first public live transatlantic telecast (Real Time 1960s via YouTube)


Earth's Copper Ring

Project West Ford was a civilian experiment to create an artificial ionosphere above Earth on behalf of the US military. It was carried out by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, a Department of Defense funded research station located on Hanscom Air Force Base northwest of Boston, Massachusetts. It was also meant to be the largest radio antenna in human history and fulfill the goal of protecting the country's long-range communications, particularly in the event of an attack. The material of choice? Millions of tiny copper needles.


Each copper wire was about 0.7 inches (1.8 cm) long and served as a dipole antenna. Of three West Ford launches occurring between 1961 and 1963 onboard Atlas launch vehicles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, only one successfully scattered the tiny copper needles into a polar, medium Earth orbit. There was one problem, though; the naphthalene gel covering each needle was not evaporating as it should have, resulting in the needles sticking together and forming clumps. Regardless, voice transmissions were effectively relayed between California and the Lincoln Laboratory and the technical aspects of the project were declared a success.


After its 1963 deployment, Project West Ford was cancelled for two reasons. The project's first fatal bullet was actually shot in 1962 with the launch of Telstar 1 and the advent of active communications satellites. The second and lesser reason was protests from scientists and astronomers around the world demanding the US be held accountable for its creation of space debris since West Ford's needles would interfere with Earth-based astronomical observations. As of March 2020, 36 clumps of needles are still orbiting the Earth and are being tracked by NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office, making them some of the oldest man-made objects in space [3]. Though the project failed to create an artificial ionosphere, it did raise awareness of the new problem of space debris.


Project West Ford needles and postage stamp

West Ford needles next to a 4 cent postage stamp (Public Domain)


The Early Bird Catches the Worm

The success of Telstar I led to the development of two organizations aimed at managing the proliferation and regulation of commercial communications satellites. The Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) was established via the Communications Satellite Act of 1962 to promote the development of these new kind of spacecraft in the United States. In 1964, COMSAT helped create the International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium, an international governmental organization commonly known as Intelsat. Before becoming a private company in 2001, Intelsat had 81 signatories and the goal of worldwide satellite coverage.


Intelsat 1 Early Bird satellite
Intelsat I (NASA)

NASA's Syncom 2 became the world's first geosynchronous satellite in July 1963 while Syncom 3 became the first geostationary satellite in August 164. Syncom 3 telecasted the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan to the United States [4]. Although it was powered-off in 1969, Syncom 3 remains in orbit as of 2024.


Intelsat I, nicknamed Early Bird, was the first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite and was based on the aforementioned Syncom spacecraft family (both were built by the Space and Communications Group of Hughes Aircraft Company). Built for COMSAT and operated in cooperation with Intelsat, Early Bird launched from LC-17 onboard a Delta-D rocket on April 6, 1965 [5]. It entered service almost three months later on June 28 and provided the first live coverage of a spacecraft splashdown (Gemini 6) in December. The satellite was deactivated in January 1969 but reactivated briefly to support the broadcasting of Apollo 11.


Early Bird's greatest contribution was to the 1967 television program Our World, the first live multinational and multi-satellite broadcast. Four geosynchronous communications satellites— Early Bird, Intelsat II F-2 ("Lani Bird"), Intelsat II F-3 ("Canary Bird"), and NASA's ATS-1— provided coverage to twenty-four countries. Early Bird and Canary Bird were positioned over the Atlantic Ocean while Lani Bird and ATS-1 stayed over the Pacific. The Beatles' song "All You Need is Love" was commissioned by the BBC for Our World. Similar to "Telstar", an instrumental titled "Early Bird" was composed by Belgian keyboardist André Brasseur in 1965.


Intelsat Early Bird advertisement

Intelsat I advertisement (Intelsat)


These early experimental communications satellites were the framework for the spacecraft that connect billions of people across the world today. Their successors allowed audiences to watch the first manned moon landing, folks in Asia and Oceania to watch Elvis Presley's Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite, and Finland to watch the first Finnish hockey captain win the Stanley Cup across the ocean in south Florida.




Author's note: Thanks for reading and be sure to like and share!


 

[1] The first American satellite, Explorer 1, was launched by a Juno I rocket, a derivative of the V2. The Redstone family (known for putting the first Americans in space) and the Saturn family (which sent men to the moon) are also direct descendants of the V2.

[2] Minitrack was the first American satellite tracking network and became operational in 1957.

[3] The oldest is the long-defunct Vanguard 2 satellite placed in orbit by the US in 1958 where it will remain another few hundred years.

[4] The 1964 Summer Olympics took place in October and the Soviet team was greeted by the crew of Voskhod 1.

[5] The only other launch of a Delta-D was of Syncom 3.


 

Bibliography

Intellectual Properties I don't own

This post was written entirely without the use of AI (sorry HAL).

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