by Mark Ollig
An
historical event began from a launch pad in Florida 55 years ago this week.
NASA
(National Aeronautics and Space Administration) had just become operational in
October of 1958.
It
was working on Project SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay
Equipment), America’s first earth-orbiting communications satellite.
The
“orbiting relay equipment” was housed inside a satellite onboard a US Airforce
Atlas booster rocket.
The
satellite communications payload weighed roughly 150 pounds.
Project
SCORE, according to NASA, was to “. . . demonstrate the feasibility of, and
explore problems associated with, [the] operation of a satellite communication
system.”
This
was the first working test of an earth-orbiting communications satellite relay
system, and was nicknamed the “talking atlas.”
This
event also marked the first time an Atlas booster rocket had ever been used as
a space launch vehicle.
There
was extreme secrecy about the operation and the specific course planned for the
Atlas 10B mission – in fact, only 35 people in the entire country knew the details
of it.
I
discovered the person who pushed the firing button for the Atlas rocket to
lift-off, did not even know the exact course which had been established for it.
We
need to remember; at the time of the Atlas launch, it had only been 14 months
since the Soviet Union placed its now-famous Sputnik 1 satellite in orbit
around the world with its continuous radio signals of “beep-beep-beep-beep”
being transmitted towards the Earth.
At
that time, many folks here in the US were frightened the Soviets might arm
their future earth-orbiting space satellites with nuclear warheads.
You
can listen to one minute of the recorded radio signal beeps as transmitted from
the Sputnik 1 satellite at: http://tinyurl.com/bytes-sputnik1.
Project
SCORE was established, in part, to put the United States on an even playing
field with the Soviet Union; in light of their success with Sputnik.
I
also believe Americans wanted reassurance in knowing the US would have its own
satellite in space as soon as possible.
On
the evening of Thursday, Dec. 18, 1958, the Atlas rocket carrying the secret US
satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, FL.
Four-and-a-half
minutes after lift-off, the rocket reached a speed of 17,000 mph. It maneuvered
into Earth orbit via its internal guidance system – which was a technical
first.
A
total of 8,750 pounds was placed into earth-orbit via the Atlas rocket – the
heaviest ever to have been sent into orbit at that time.
This
satellite was successfully used for relaying real-time voice and teletype
communication messages received from a location on earth through the upper
atmosphere. After receiving the messages, the satellite would transmit them
back down to a specific ground station.
The
satellite also had two special devices onboard.
They
were a pair of tape recorders, each with a four-minute recording capacity. Both
provided safeguard-redundancy: One recorder acted as the primary unit, and the
other as a backup unit.
These
recorders in the satellite were able to receive radio messages from Earth,
record the messages and transmit them back again.
There
was one very special voice message, the recorders carried.
It
turns out it was a good thing NASA had installed a redundant recorder onboard.
The
primary recorder had failed; therefore, the backup was used to transmit a
special Christmas greeting to the world.
The
following surprise message from President Dwight D. Eisenhower was radioed to
Earth December 19, 1958, from the first US earth-orbiting communications
satellite:
“This
is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of
scientific advance, my voice is coming to you via a satellite circling in outer
space. My message is a simple one: Through this unique means I convey to you
and all mankind, America’s wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men
everywhere.”
The
batteries onboard the satellite lasted for 12 days, and then, on Jan. 21, 1959,
the Atlas satellite’s orbit began to decay. It entered the upper Earth’s
atmosphere, where it burned up.
An
important technological milestone had been achieved – one which paved the way
for the next generation of communication satellites.
A
video of the Atlas 10B rocket satellite launch, along with the voice recording
of President Eisenhower’s Christmas message to the world, is stored in the
Internet Archive at http://tinyurl.com/bytes-score.
