The first orbit pictures were rushed to Washington on a new facsimile machine, also developed by the Signal Corps Research and Development Laboratory. That represented the most intricate control so far used in a satellite. Its two television cameras - one a wide-angle lens photographing 800-mile squares of the earth's surface and the other shooting 30-mile squares, ranging between the latitudes of Montreal and New Zealand, were of different resolution for direct readout and tape storage. The first television-type satellite for world-wide cloud cover mapping was produced under Signal Corps technical supervision and NASA sponsorship. To televise cloud formations within a belt several thousand miles wide around the earth and transmit a series of pictures back to special ground stations, the 270 pound TIROS (Television and Infra Red Observation Satellite) was launched on Apby an Air Force vehicle. The Signal Corps Research and Development Laboratory also contributed special components or subsystems to the payloads developed by other organizations, such as high-frequency control crystals, special batteries, and high efficiency, low voltage to high voltage transistor power converters. It made 211 orbits and was successfully interrogated 155 times to release the stored information. Vanguard II, with infrared scanning devices to provide crude mapping of the earth's cloud cover and a tape recorder to store the information, operated perfectly during the entire 20-day life of the battery power source. The second major satellite payload contribution was the complete electronics payload for the Vanguard Cloud Cover Satellite, 1959 Alpha, launched on Feb. SCORE was an Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) project carried out by the Signal Corps with the Air Force providing the Atlas launching vehicle. The experiment effectively demonstrated the feasibility of world-wide communications in delayed and real time mode by means of relatively simple active satellite relays and provided valuable information for the design of later communications satellites. Eisenhower's Christmas message to people around the world. 18, 1958, carrying from outer space President Dwight D. 21, 1965, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported that the tiny satellite's radio voice had weakened to the point where engineers believed it would never be heard from again after a transmission record of almost seven years.Ī prototype of the first communications satellite, Project SCORE (Signal Communications via Orbiting Relay Experiment), was successfully launched Dec. Still more important, it established solar cells as the most efficient and reliable source of electrical power for satellites. It also enabled geophysicists to determine that the earth is slightly pear shaped, not the oblate spheroid previously envisioned. It proved itself invaluable in scientific computations.įor example, because its orbit was definitely known and charted, it was used by map-makers as a true "fix" in establishing positions of Pacific islands never definitively placed before. In its first three years, Vanguard I traveled 409,257,000 miles in 11,786 orbits. Three minutes after the Vanguard I was launched at Cape Canaveral, Fla., its signals were being picked up at the laboratory's Deal, N.J., test station. Vanguard's initial orbit time was 135 minutes. The Signal Research and Development Laboratory headquartered here developed solar power devices consisting of six cell clusters to power one of the two radio transmitters in the sphere. That came with the launching of the Vanguard I on March 17, 1958. The first major satellite payload contribution was a demonstration of the feasibility of solar converters for satellites. The Signal Corps had opened up the space age electronically by bouncing radio signals off the moon from its Diana radar at the Evans Signal Laboratory in Wall Township, N.J., on Jan. It also marks the 50th anniversary of TIROS, the first televised weather satellite, and COURIER, the first high capacity communications satellite and the satellite technology that has helped to make possible today's command and control systems such as the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T). This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Signal Corps. My far reaching voice can now reach across the vast expanse of space. For the first time ever, I have cupped my ears and listened to satellites. "In this century, I have bounced sensitive whispers off the moon, and guided manmade moons in orbit around our earth. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. 1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S.
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