Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 3
satellite field, suggested using the larger 100-foot-diameter Echo satellite to test transatlantic
radio communications. [I-3] NASA accepted Pierce’s suggestion, and the orbiting
satellite was successfully used as a passive reflector (that is, there were no electronic systems
to amplify the signal aboard the satellite) of an August 18 message from New Jersey
to France. (Similar experiments had been conducted earlier using the Earth’s Moon as a
passive reflector.)
Although this and many other experiments using the passive Echo 1 and Echo 2 satellites
(Echo 2 was launched in January 1964) were successful, in the late 1950s and early
1960s, industry and government attention increasingly focused on active communications
satellites carrying on-board electronics that received a signal from the Earth, amplified it,
and sent it back to the Earth. Such satellites had more predictable orbits than passive satellites;
fewer were required to create a communications network; and signals relayed
through active satellites required less expensive ground stations and had much higher
capacity. 7
The first artificial communications satellite that foreshadowed today’s active satellite
technology, Courier 1B, was designed and launched by the U.S. military in October 1960.
It featured solar and battery power, an active antenna for transmission and reception, and
electronic repeaters capable of frequency conversion from uplink to downlink signals.
Despite the technological gains that Courier 1B represented, it still had a capability of
only sixteen teletype channels. In short, it was little more than an experimental device.
Submarine cables still had 100 times this capacity.
NASA, AT&T, and the Department of Defense, however, were by this time moving
ahead with tremendous energy and quickly achieved impressive results. On July 10, 1962,
only a year and a half after Courier 1B, a quantum leap in capability was achieved with the
launch of Telstar, an AT&T-designed and -built experimental satellite with sufficient capacity
to relay a television signal. Telstar was launched into a medium orbit with a
570-mile perigee; at this orbit, a number of satellites (about twelve to fifteen) would be
required for an operational system. The success of the Telstar experiment immediately
changed the world’s view of the potential of this new technology. [I-20] 8 Recognition grew
that communications satellites could have three to four times the capacity of then-current
submarine cables. Almost overnight, their commercial viability was advanced from remote
to highly likely. Quickly thereafter, on December 14, 1962, the NASA-funded Relay 1 of
the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was launched into an orbit with a 660-mile
perigee, demonstrating many of the same features as Telstar but with a longer lifetime in
orbit. The technical feasibility of active communications satellites was thus clearly demonstrated
by the second half of 1962. 9 The development of these early communications satellites
represented the first steps toward the practical use of space and began a debate about
whether such an enterprise should be public or private in nature.
Then, a satellite built by Hughes Aircraft, developed with both company and NASA
funding and launched on December 14, 1963, demonstrated the final technical feature
required for communications satellites to become commercially viable—stable and continuous
operation in geosynchronous orbit. Beginning in 1959, Hughes had been work-
7. John R. Pierce, The Beginnings of Space Communications (San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Press,
1968), p. 103; Arthur C. Clarke, The Promise of Space (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), pp. 100–101; Smith,
Communications via Satellite, pp. 51–55.
8. It should be noted here that because the document about Project Telstar was produced in the second
half of 1962, it appears in chronological order after this essay but is referenced out of order within the essay.
Also note that the references to Documents I-14, I-22, and I-26 are out of order.
9. Leonard Jaffe, Communications in Space (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1966), p. 86; Orrin
E. Dunlap, Jr., Communications in Space (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 151.