The Telstar Experiment

The papers that follow describe in depth the satellite and ground systems designed for the Telstar experiment and give the results to date. The purpose of this introduction is to set the scene in which the project was undertaken and to state some general conclusions. Bell System interest in satellite communication had been aroused when in 1955, Dr. John R. Pierce published calculations showing the possible usefulness of satellites to communication. Dr. Pierce discussed the relations among power, bandwidth, antenna gain, and orbit parameters. Sputnik in 1957 started the procession of man-made satellites. In 1960, with the launching of a large aluminum-coated balloon by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the famous Echo experiments were conducted between a transmitting and receiving station set up by Bell Telephone Laboratories at Holmdel, New Jersey, and a companion station at Goldstone, California, designed and operated by Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Echo experiments produced the first two-way telephone conversations via satellite. They also confirmed predictions of the radio path loss to be encountered, the stability of the radio medium, and the low noise picked up by a well designed antenna pointing at the sky. These results were studied at Bell Laboratories in the context of the Bell System's long-term interest in overseas communication. The first New York-London commercial voice circuit was established by longwave radio in 1927 and was followed by short-wave (HF) circuits in 1929.