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Joseph loves Science and Astronomy, and they have been talking about SCORE, the world's first purpose-built communications satellite, that was launched on a day like today in 1958.
SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was the world's first purpose-built communications satellite. Launched aboard an American Atlas rocket on December 18, 1958, SCORE provided the second test of a communications relay system in space (the first having been provided by the USAF/NASA's Pioneer 1), the first broadcast of a human voice from space, and the first successful use of the Atlas as a launch vehicle. It captured world attention by broadcasting a Christmas message via shortwave radio from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower through an on-board tape recorder.
The satellite was popularly dubbed The Talking Atlas. SCORE, as a geopolitical strategy, placed the United States at an even technological par with the Soviet Union as a highly functional response to the Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 satellites.
The six-month effort was the first endeavor of the then-new Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) headed by Roy Johnson, and proved that a small, highly focused and versatile research group with appropriate resources was an ideal method to achieve the scientific and technological advances necessary to succeed in the emerging global space race.
SCORE's technical objectives were two-fold. In addition to showing that an Atlas missile was capable of satellite payload launch, the payload itself was a hundred times more massive than any previous US satellite. The program demonstrated the feasibility of transmitting messages through the upper atmosphere from one ground station to one or more ground stations. The result of the program, which used both real-time and store and forward techniques, was a major scientific breakthrough which proved that active communications satellites could provide a means of transmitting messages from one point to any other on Earth.
More information: Smithsonian-National Air and Space Museum
The SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting RElay) satellite of US ARMY was a 24.3 metres long, and 3.1 metres diameter Atlas missile used as a platform for the communications relay experiment. The spacecraft body served as antennae. This satellite was to demonstrate the feasibility and explore problems associated with, operation of a satellite communication system. It carried messages on a tape recorder which was used at one point to carry a Christmas greeting from President Eisenhower. The performance was nominal with experiment operation for 12 days, planned orbit lifetime 20 days, actual orbit lifetime 34 days. The tracking beacon operated at 108 MHz.
The SCORE communications package was designed and built by Kenneth Masterman-Smith, a military communication research engineer, along with other personnel with the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory (SRDL) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
This first communications satellite experiment consisted of 2 identical communications repeater terminals mounted in the guidance pods along the sides of the launch vehicle. The experiment was to test the feasibility and explore problems associated with, using satellites for communications purposes. No modulation was received on the carrier wave from experiment package no. 1. Voice and teletype messages were sent and returned in real-time, and also from experiment tape recorder no. 2. The tape recorder was loaded with new material 28 times and failure finally was due to battery depletion. The experiment receiver and transmitter operated on 150 and 132 MHz, respectively.
The communications repeater installed on the missile would receive a signal, amplify it, and then retransmit it. Two redundant sets of equipment were mounted in the nose of the SCORE missile. Four antennas were mounted flush with the missile surface, two for transmission and two for reception.
SCORE's other equipment included two tape recorders, each with a four-minute capacity. Any of four ground stations in the southern United States could command the satellite into playback mode to transmit the stored message or into record mode to receive and store a new message. These redundancies proved invaluable as one of the tape recorders malfunctioned and was rendered inoperable during the 12-day mission.
More information: Appel-NASA
map ice sheet melting, detect diseases, show ecosystem change...
the list goes on and on.
I think nearly every scientific field benefits
or could benefit from satellite imagery analysis.
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