Page 67 - Communications Satellites Global Change Agents

2. EVOLUTION OF SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY 43

and Telstar, but it was soon verified that the parabolic dish was more efficient and
cost-effective.
These costly and sensitive ground facilities, equipped to both transmit and re-
ceive signals, had to be high performance to collect the faint signals (i.e., a few
millionths of a watt) that the earth station had to detect at the earth's surface due to
the spreading of the satellite signal over its 22,230-mile journey. (This phenome-
non is known as path loss.) Thus, the early satellite earth stations were almost like
radio telescopes, and thus required special cryogenic cooling systems for the
high-performance amplifiers. This in turn meant the earth stations had to be
staffed by around-the-clock crews of 40 to 50 people each. Ultimately, the cost of
these earth stations ended up costing as much or more than building and launching
the satellite.
It is remarkable that satellite technology has evolved so rapidly over the last 40
years from this rather crude beginning. Today, dishes the size of cereal bowls can
receive TV signals from the highest power direct broadcast satellites, and mobile
satellites can work with hand-held units.
The success of Syncom 2 set several actions in process. The officials of the
newly formed U.S. organization Comsat signed a contract with Hughes Aircraft
Company, on behalf of Intelsat, to build an improved version of Syncom. This
satellite was described in the contract as the HS 303 vehicle. This satellite ulti-
mately became officially known as Intelsat-I. When it was launched just over 1
year later in April 1965, this first commercial satellite also became affectionately
known as "Early Bird" in headlines across the world.

THE RUSH TO BUILD OUT THE EARTH SEGMENT

Another important activity as noted earlier was the construction of the massive
and expensive earth stations that would work with Early Bird. There was already
the huge horn-shaped antenna built by AT&T in Andover, Maine, to work with
the passive Echo and the active Telstar satellites that could be employed to work
with Early Bird. Yet there was a need for similar facilities on the other side of the
Atlantic because the first satellite was to be positioned over the Atlantic Ocean.
Consequently, the British Post Office (which later became British Telecommuni-
cations) constructed a facility on Goonhilly Downs in England, the German Post
and Telecommunications Ministries constructed facilities in Raisting, Germany,
and so on for Pleumeur Boudou, France, Fucino, Italy, and elsewhere. From this
modest beginning with just a handful of large earth stations, the industry has come
a long way in just short of four decades. There are now over 100 million receive-
only satellite terminals in use for satellite TV reception. Soon there will also be
over 1 million very small aperture terminals (VSATs) for interactive business and
small office/home office (SoHo) use and millions more number for personal mo-
bile satellite services and GPS radio navigation services.