Syncom Celebrates 40 Years
Boeing-Built Syncom Satellite Starts a Global Communications Revolution
The 1963 launch of Syncom started a global communications revolution. Here are some of the changes that the Boeing-built satellite helped bring about.
Then-and-Now Comparisons
- Worldwide satellite industry revenues, 1965: $12 million
- Worldwide satellite industry revenues, 2002: $86.8 billion
- Number of geosynchronous communications satellites, 1963: 1
- Number of geosynchronous communications satellites today: 240 plus
- Global tax revenues from satellite services, 1965: $1.5 million
- Global tax revenues from satellite services, 2003: $3 billion
- Capacity of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite, 1965: 1 TV channel
- Capacity of all communications satellites today: 12,000 TV channels
- Satellite capacity for simultaneous telephone users, 1965: Several hundred
- Satellite capacity for simultaneous telephone users, 2003: Up to 500 million
- People viewing satellite television in a year, 1965: Several million
- People viewing satellite television in a year, 2003: ~4 billion
- Weight in orbit of Syncom 2, launched in 1963: 78 lb.
- Weight in orbit of Thuraya-2, launched in 2003: 7056 lb.
Recent Trends
- Worldwide satellite industry revenues, 2002: $86.8 billion
- Worldwide satellite industry revenues, 1996: $38 billion
- Percent of U.S. households with pay televisions using direct broadcast satellite systems, 2003: 20
- Percent of U.S. households with pay televisions using direct broadcast satellite systems, 1998: less than 10
- Satellite radio subscribers by the end of 2003: 1.5 million
Other facts
- Satellites are crucial to rural areas: Imagery, distance learning, public safety (dispatch radio for police, fire), entertainment and telemedicine
- More than 400 commercial communications satellites are currently in operation; of these, more than 240 are geostationary
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December 2003
Contact: Joseph Tedino
Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems
202-285-9559