Early Success Spawned Many 'Firsts'
The pioneering Syncom 2 and 3 satellites, which proved the feasibility of geosynchronous satellites, set the stage for a proliferation of applications over the ensuing four decades. Instant global communications, vastly improved defense capabilities, planetary exploration, weather monitoring-Syncom numbers these as its four-decade legacy. And Hughes Aircraft Company-which developed Syncoms 2 and 3 for NASA and whose satellite unit became Boeing Satellite Systems in 2000-led the way.
Hughes quickly capitalized on its Syncom success. Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite, was built for Communications Satellite Corp. and launched in April 1965. Early Bird, about the same size as Syncom, carried just one TV channel, but it exceeded its design life by two and a half years and was recalled into service for the historic Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Three spacecraft in the Intelsat II series, the first of which was launched in 1966, heralded the third generation of Hughes satellites.
"Intelsat II, which served the U.S. and the Pacific region, really started the ball rolling on geosynchronous systems," recalled Robert Steinhauer, BSS Chief Technologist and Boeing Senior Technical Fellow, who joined Hughes in February 1963. Hughes' technology expanded to meet new applications throughout the 1960s. The company built the Surveyor spacecraft that made the first fully controlled landings on the moon; TACSAT I, an experimental Department of Defense tactical communications satellite; and Applications Technology Satellites, a series of meteorological spacecraft that provided the first color pictures of Earth taken from synchronous altitude.
"In the mid-1960s, I don't think most people thought the satellite industry would become so big," Steinhauer said. "However, there was a lot of technical talent in the company in the 1960s that was up for the challenge."
The pace didn't let up in the 1970s, when Hughes built the first communications satellite to serve an individual nation (Anik A for Canada, 1972), the first U.S. domestic communications satellite (Westar 1, 1974), the first satellite to reuse frequencies, thereby doubling capacity (Intelsat IVA, 1975), the first maritime communications satellite system (Marisat, 1976), the first domestic satellite system for Indonesia (Palapa-A), and the first spacecraft to perform extensive radar mapping of Venus (Pioneer Venus Orbiter, 1978), and additional Intelsat spacecraft, among others.
Jim Thompson, like Steinhauer a BSS Chief Technologist and Senior Technical Fellow, said, "In those days, the satellite industry was in a technological growth phase. Almost every program had a new technology or a 'first.' The space business was a new venture in the company, was big in Southern California, and was very much in the public consciousness. There was a spirit of adventure across the board."
From 1980 to 2003, Hughes and Boeing launched more than 150 commercial, civil, and defense spacecraft from Japan, China, Florida, Kazakhstan, French Guiana, the Pacific Ocean, and the space shuttle. Three new commercial satellite models introduced in this span carried increasingly higher power and capability: The Boeing 376, the Boeing 601-the world's most widely purchased satellite model-and the Boeing 702, the world's most powerful commercial communications satellite.
They give entire continents new ways to communicate without regard to distance. They save lives by furnishing timely weather forecasts. They allow untold millions to watch history unfold, from "Live Aid" to the Olympics to September 11. Thompson joined Hughes in June 1964, when math calculations were done with slide rules and computer work was processed overnight on IBM mainframes. "We used to have two-foot satellites and 100-foot receiving dishes," said Thompson, who helped plot telemetry data from Syncom 2. "Now we have 100-foot satellites and two-foot antennas."
BOEING SATELLITE SYSTEMS BUILT THE FIRST:
- Dedicated system in North America for mobile telephone, radio, facsimile, paging, position location, and data communications for users on land, at sea, and in the air (MSAT, 1990s)
- Digital direct-to-home television broadcasting for North America (DIRECTV1, 1994)
- Spacecraft to penetrate Jupiter's atmosphere (Galileo Probe, 1995)
- Payload to provide satellite crosslink communications (Milstar, 1996)
- Domestic satellite systems for Australia (AUSSAT A, 1980s), Brazil (Brasilsat A, 1980s), Malaysia (MEASAT, 1990s), Mexico (Morelos, 1980s), and Thailand (THAICOM, 1990s)
BSS BUILT:
- Thirty-six percent of communications satellites currently in operation, the most of any manufacturer
- The solar cells that powered the fastest ever U.S. solar car race (Solar Minter IV, Chicago to Claremont, California, cumulative time of 51 hours, 47 minutes, 39 seconds, 2003)
- The longest-operating ion engine (16,000 hours, Deep Space 1)
- More than one million multi-junction gallium arsenide solar cells
- Photovoltaic cells that convert 36. 9 percent of the sun's energy to electricity, an unprecedented conversion efficiency for a terrestrial concentrator solar cell
BSS HAS:
- The world's largest commercial satellite factory (more than 1 million square feet)
- The most years of in-orbit satellite experience (more than 1000 years)
- More than 30 years' heritage of providing weather and Earth-observation satellites and payloads