Telstar
- Alternate use: Coleco Telstar
Belonging to AT&T, the original Telstar was part of a multi-national agreement between AT&T, Bell Telephone Laboratories, NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National PTT (Post & Telecom Office) to develop satellite communication. Bell also built the Earth Station in Andover, and held a contract with NASA, reimbursing the agency 3 million dollars for each launch, independent of success.
Launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962, Telstar was the first privately sponsored space launch. A medium-altitude satellite, Telstar was placed in an elliptical orbit (completed once every 2 hours and 37 minutes), rotating at a 45 degree angle above the equator. Because of this, its transmission avaliability for transatlantic signals was only 20 minutes in each orbit.
Telstar relayed its first television pictures (of a flag outside its ground station in Andover, Maine) on the date of its launch. Almost two weeks later, on July 23, it relayed the first live transatlantic television signal. During that evening it also dealt with the first telephone call transmitted through space and successfully transmitted faxes, data, and both live and taped television, including the first live transmission of television across an ocean (to Pleumeur-Bodou, in France). John F. Kennedy, then President of the United States, gave a live transatlantic press conference via Telstar.
The satellite was built by a team at Bell Telephone Laboratories. It was roughly spherical, was 34.5 inches (880 mm) long, and weighed 170 lb (77 kg). Its dimensions were limited by what would fit in one of NASA's Delta rockets. The team calculated the orbital path and located the US ground station accordingly in the US State of Maine.
Telstar would receive microwave signals from a ground station equipped with a helical antenna, amplify them, and rebroadcast them. During Project Echo, Telstar was able to successfully send and receive communications using light wave as a transmission medium, between Echo I and Telstar.
The original Telstar was just an experiment, however; it went out of service on February 21, 1963. Experiments continued, and by 1964, two Telstars, two Relay units (from RCA), and two Syncom units (from the Hughes Aircraft Company) had operated successfully in space. Syncom 2 was the first geosynchronous satellite and its successor, Syncom 3, broadcasted pictures from the 1964 Summer Olympics. The first commercial geostationary satellite was Intelsat 1 ("Early Bird") launched in 1965.
Telstars 5ÃÂ7 and 10ÃÂ13 are presently (2004) operated by Loral Skynet. Telstar-8 is being manufactured by Space Systems/Loral and is due to launch in 2004.
Joe Meek composed a popular instrumental recording in 1962, named Telstar after the satellite; it was performed by The Tornados. Sound effects on the record, intended to symbolize radio signals, were produced by Meek running a pen around the rim of an ashtray, and then playing the tape of it in reverse.
In the Netherlands, a football club formed from a merger was named SC Telstar after the satellites.
Telstar is also the name of a British record company, famous in the 1980s for its compilation albums, but which also went on to look after such acts as Craig David, Victoria Beckham, Rosie Ribbons and Mis-Teeq, before going into administration in 2004. The American heavy metal band Helstar took their name partly from the satellite as well.