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Satellites
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Communications satellites:
Satellites were continually being launched and were fading out of the news
during the decade of 1950 and the early 1960s, until in 1962 a new satellite
sensation hit. On the 10th of July, the US satellite Telstar 1 was launched
from Cape Canaveral which when operational, relayed radio signals from the
USA to Europe in the form of television pictures. This made history, as
being the first live broadcast across the Atlantic Ocean.
 In today’s world we
seem to take satellites that instantly beam TV pictures all around the world
for granted, but in 1962 people did not. They used to gather around their
television set, watching in wonder and amazement as television pictures were
sent ‘LIVE' all the way across the Atlantic. The way in which these pictures
were sent was that pictures were transmitted from a ground station in
North-West USA to the Telstar 1 satellite where the signals were boosted and
sent down to Ground stations in Europe that then directed them to ground
based transmitters which, as usual, broadcasted to homes all across Europe.
Telstar 1 became a big and instant hit although it had
many limitations. Telstar 1 had a very low elliptical orbit and therefore
there were only short periods of time when Telstar 1 could relay pictures,
so the TV programs had to be specially made to fit these time slots. Also
the equipment could only cope with one black and white TV channel. But all
of these limitations still never stood in its way, it kept relaying pictures
and the public loved it. There was even a chart topping song named after it
written by the Tornadoes.
By the year of 1967 the first worldwide television satellite was played. The
program was of the Pop sensations, the Beatles playing their hit song All
You Need Is Love. The show was broadcast on the 25th of June and was watched
by approximately 400 million people. Before this had happened, Telstar 2 was
launched in 1963 which measured 87cm across. It used solar cells to recharge
it batteries and handled one television channel or six telephone lines.
Hundreds of communications satellites are currently in orbit, launched by
many different countries, providing telephone, facsimile, communications and
television services all around the world; even in those places which are
isolated and rural; thus providing an unprecedented availability and ease of
instantaneous global communication.
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The history of the satellite |
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