AT&T launches Telstar 1

AT&T launched Telstar 1 on July 10, 1962, marking the first successful deployment of an active communications satellite capable of relaying live television signals, telephone calls, and data across the Atlantic Ocean. The satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a Delta rocket, with the launch conducted in cooperation with the U.S. space program. Telstar 1 was developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and was designed to amplify and retransmit signals rather than merely reflect them, distinguishing it from earlier passive satellites. Weighing about 170 pounds (77 kilograms), Telstar 1 orbited Earth in a medium-altitude, non-geosynchronous orbit. Because of this orbit, it could transmit signals only during brief windows as it passed over ground stations in North America and Europe. On the day of its launch, Telstar 1 enabled the first live transatlantic television broadcasts, transmitting images between the United States and Europe. Early demonstrations included television pictures exchanged between ground stations in Andover, Maine, and locations in France and the United Kingdom, as well as telephone and facsimile signals. Although Telstar 1’s operational life was limited—its electronics were damaged less than a year later by radiation from high-altitude nuclear tests—the satellite demonstrated the technical feasibility of satellite-based global communications and influenced later satellite systems that adopted continuous-coverage orbits.