HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TELSTAR

Satellites are now as ubiquitous as jet airliners and ocean-going tankers. Use of satellites in our daily lives is as common as watching television or finding the nearest Burger King restaurant on GPS. It was not always thus.

IT WAS 47 YEARS AGO TODAY.

On July 10, 1962, the first communications satellite, Telstar 1, was launched by a Delta Rocket into an elliptical orbit. (Today’s communication satellites are typically launched into geosynchronous orbits.)

Telstar relayed television signals and multiplexed telephone signals. It went out of service in February of 1963. Ironically, its service life was cut short by the explosion of a US high altitude nuclear explosion.

Telstar 1 was replaced by Telstar 2 in May of 1963. Both satellites are still in orbit, although neither is operational.

CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL ICON.

Telstar was a cultural icon. The British Band the Tornados recorded a song named Telstar and this song was the first by a British band to reach Number 1 on the US pop charts. (This was the pre-Beatles era).

The song Telstar was later covered by the rock band the Ventures.

TELSTAR IS ALSO AN ICON IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!