Word: comsat
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...three-stage Douglas Delta rocket that rose above Cape Kennedy last week tossed its 85-lb. payload into a high elliptical orbit with neat precision. Early Bird, first satellite to be sent aloft by Comsat (Communications Satellite Corp.), climbed as high as 22,300 miles above the earth, then curved down as low as 776 miles. When this original orbit had been analyzed and Early Bird was at an apogee, a signal from the earth fired a small rocket motor to give just enough extra speed to put the satellite into a circular orbit that matched the earth...
Even before Early Bird reached its final station, it went to work. American Telephone & Telegraph's great horn antenna at Andover, Me., which is now leased by Comsat, sent a television test pattern up to the satellite. Back the pattern came to Andover, its quality so good that Siegfried H. Reiger, Comsat's technical vice president, proudly told a press conference: "The television capability of the Early Bird satellite is established...
...Comsat plans to station two more Early Birds over the Pacific and Indian oceans to cover the earth, but it is not about to count on synchronous satellites alone. It is also working on communications packages that will circle on lower orbits. They will have to be much more numerous, and ground stations will need a complicated system to keep track of their ever-changing positions, but there is a good chance that they may well prove more practical...
Target 1967. The complex and sensitive job of getting Comsat off the ground belongs to two men: Chairman Leo D. Welch and President Joseph V. Charyk. Welch, 66, a former chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey, is concentrating on Comsat's finances, running interference on Wall Street and with the communications industry. Canadian-born Charyk, 44, an aeronautics expert and former Under Secretary of the Air Force, oversees the company's technical operations. No other corporate officers have ever been handed so many varied problems so fast. They have had to handle the housekeeping chores of starting...
...flaps have been surprisingly few. In negotiations over whether Comsat or the communications users should own the permanent ground stations in the U.S., Comsat found itself at odds with its largest single stockholder-American Telephone & Telegraph. The question was tossed to the Federal Communications Commission, which must reach a decision soon so that Comsat can draw up a proposed schedule of rates. But these are minor irritations. Comsat still promises to give the world a revolutionary new communications system...