The Telstar

Date:  July 10, 1962

Telstar was the name of an American communications satellite that was active and successfully relayed pictures, calls, and other images to Earth. It also managed to provide live television feed.

“Launched by a Delta booster, Telstar first went into orbit on July 10, 1962” (Encyclopedia Astronautica).  As well as being a communications satellite, it also did some experiments while in orbit. It was designed to measure the energetic proton and electron distribution in the Van Allen belts.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Telstar.jpg/200px-Telstar.jpg

 When the Telestar started processing and relaying pictures, it was doing a variety of other things. It was able to transmit live video signals. It also transmitted images from other countries back to the stations on Earth.  It was also able to receive and make calls, as well relaying fax signals.

Telstar 2 was launched over a year later, and it served as an update version of the first Telstar. The first Telstar went out of commission on February 21, 1963, after not being able to transmit information effectively, as well as having some other technical problems.

The Telstart, and the communication satellites that would come after, would help in the design and implementation of other communication equipment in spacecraft. With the capability of producing live feeds of space and other objects, these satellites would become very useful in the exploration of space and the capturing of it through image and video.