For many people today, it is difficult to conceive of a world without all of the space technology that we now take for granted. One of those indispensable Space Age technological advances is communication satellites or comsats which allow data to be sent to almost any point on the globe in a fraction of a second. While such technology is common today, before the launching of the first satellite in October 1957 and the opening of the Space Age (see “Sputnik: The Launch of the Space Age“), comsats were just a dream of visionaries like Arthur C. Clark. But in the wake of the launching of the first Soviet Sputnik satellites, plans were set into motion to launch the first experimental comsat using America’s first ICBM, the Atlas, in an effort to demonstrate this key military technology as well as rebuild American technological prestige that had been damaged by the surprising advances in Soviet space and missile technology.

The Atlas ICBM

At the beginning of the Space Age, the largest American rocket undergoing flight testing was the Atlas ICBM. The SM-65 Atlas program, which initially went by the name “Weapon System 107A”, began in February of 1954 after it had been determined that an ICBM was feasible. Because of its early ICBM-related development work, Convair (which later merged with General Dynamics whose space division is now part of Lockheed Martin) was chosen as the prime contractor for the project in January of 1955. By June the project was given a “A-1” priority which placed it first in line for the nation’s engineering and material resources.

Unlike most rockets at the time, the Atlas did not rely on aircraft-style construction where the propellant tanks and exterior shell were attached to an internal framework. Instead the Atlas used the same thin stainless steel structure to act an both the outer shell and propellant tanks with internal pressure providing the rigidity needed to keep it from collapsing. This lightweight balloon or integral tank-type structure was successfully tested by Convair on the MX-774 experimental rocket which flew three times in 1948. With a diameter of 3 meters and a total length of about 24 meters, the stainless steel structure of the Atlas was no thicker than one millimeter (or about the thickness of an American dime) which resulted in an immense weight savings.

Convair, working together with engineers from Rocketdyne, devised a brilliant means of shedding excess mass during flight and greatly increasing the range of the Atlas. After the Atlas had lifted off and gained some altitude as well as burned off a sufficient mass of propellant, it would jettison a pair of booster engines and their supporting structure. Greatly lightened, the Atlas would continue to accelerate towards its distant target powered by a single sustainer engine feeding off the remaining kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants in the tanks. This eliminated the untried procedure of starting large rocket engines at high altitude as would be required in a conventional multi-stage ICBM design.

But while this innovative stage-and-a-half concept with integral tanks promised to allow Atlas to attain the USAF’s range goal of 8,000 kilometers, the design departed too much from the existing rocket engineering paradigm for too many. To ease these concerns, on May 2, 1955 the development of a more conventional, two-staged ICBM called the SM-68 Titan I by Martin (now also part of Lockheed Martin) was approved just in case Atlas proved to be a little too innovative.

During the Atlas test program several models were built and launched from the Cape Canaveral, Florida down the Atlantic Missile Range to evaluate various systems and allow the design to evolve into a working weapon. The first model was the Atlas A. It employed only a pair of booster engines with no sustainer and was meant to test the basic Atlas design during an abbreviated flight. The first flight of the Atlas A occurred on June 11, 1957. Although Atlas 4A lifted off successfully, it quickly started to tumble out of control. While the test was unsuccessful, the rocket’s structure withstood the strain of the ordeal before being destroyed by range safety thus vindicating the strength of its design. The first successful launch in the A-series took place on December 17, 1957 when Atlas 12A flew over its prescribed 800 kilometer range (see “The First Atlas Test Flights“).

When the Atlas A test flight program concluded in June of 1958, there were only three successful flights in eight tries. Despite the record, enough was learned to move on to the Atlas B. This rocket would test the entire system from launch to the injection of a dummy warhead into an intercontinental trajectory. Later versions of the Atlas B would use the same MA-2 propulsion system built by Rocketdyne that the first operational missile would use. It consisted of a pair of LR-89 booster engines generating 734 kilonewtons of thrust each and a LR-105 sustainer engine with a thrust of 263 kilonewtons yielding a total liftoff thrust of 1,731 kilonewtons. The Atlas B would be the largest American rocket yet flown.

The Birth of Project SCORE

While the Atlas program was gearing up for full-range test flights in 1958, the USAF and ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) officials were hoping to use one of the Atlas B test flights to launch a satellite in response to the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellites. The USAF had proposed using the Atlas to launch a satellite as early as 1955 when the Department of Defense was considering satellite proposals from the Naval Research Laboratory (with what would become Vanguard) and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (who proposed Project Orbiter which would eventually launch the first Explorer satellites). While the USAF proposal was turned down because of Eisenhower’s policy that the American satellite project maintain a civilian appearance as well as not interfere with vital weapon development programs (like the Atlas), the Atlas design was still capable of orbiting a satellite with only minor modifications.

But with the shift in national priorities in the wake of the launch of the Soviet’s first two Sputnik satellites in the fall of 1957 (and the spectacular failure of the first Vanguard orbital launch attempt in December 1957 – see “Vanguard TV-3: America’s First Satellite Launch Attempt“), the USAF and ARPA were authorized to use an Atlas test flight to orbit a small payload. The launch vehicle for the attempt would be one of four “hotrod” versions of the Atlas B being specifically prepared for high performance testing. These hotrods, serial numbers 6B, 10B, 12B and 13B, were to use Atlas B airframes in combination with lighter weight Atlas C equipment pods to provide guidance, range safety provisions and significantly reduced flight instrumentation. In addition to variously modified engines with slightly enhanced performance, these Atlas B hotrods used lightweight stainless steel nose cones and adapters with no provisions to separate them from the rocket at the end of powered flight in order to save as much mass as possible. These lightweight, high performance hotrods were to be used specifically for demonstration flights meant to meet or exceed the nominal 10,000-kilometer range of the Atlas ICBM design. Atlas 10B was earmarked for the satellite launch attempt.

For the orbital payload, ARPA turned to the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory (SRDL) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. A group headed by George Senn proposed to use the Atlas to launch an experimental UHF communication package to forward recorded messages as well as act as a real-time relay. In late July 1958 ARPA officially approved the Army proposal and Project SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Experiment) was born. Given the high failure rate of Atlas test flights and the sensitivity of the Eisenhower Administration to more satellite launch failures, the goal of the Atlas orbital mission was to be kept secret and would only be revealed publicly once the payload was successfully placed into orbit. In the end, a total of only 88 contractors and government officials were aware of the secret satellite mission and were members of the informal “Club 88”.

At the start of the project, the launch date was set for early November 1958. To avoid conflicts with prelaunch preparations, the communication payload would have to be ready by the middle of October. In addition, ground stations would have to be operational and crews trained by no later than November 1 to support Project SCORE operations. With only three months from inception to launch, the experimental communications package would have to rely upon proven, off-the-shelf systems to meet the tight schedule.

Because of the performance limitations of the hotrod Atlas B, the Project SCORE experiment package was limited to a mass of 68 kilograms (a microsatellite by today’s definition despite the limitations of the technology). Calculations indicated that the Atlas could loft this payload into an orbit with a perigee of about 160 kilometers and an apogee of between 800 and 1,300 kilometers. With such a relatively high orbit, real-time communication relay tests could be performed between properly equipped ground stations as far as 1,600 kilometers from the satellite.

For the project, four mobile ground stations each consisting of appropriately equipped US Army type V-51 vans and a quad helix tracking antenna mounted on a searchlight base were established. These were located at Fort MacArthur, California, Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and Fort Stewart, Georgia. They would all be connected to a control center at SRDL at Fort Monmouth by telephone lines and HF radio.

The SCORE payload itself consisted of a redundant pair of battery-powered, vacuum tube-based UHF communication packages with a nominal design life of 21 days. This equipment was housed in anodized metal housings mounted in each of the two side pods of the Atlas used to carry missile’s control systems and other equipment. The communication package’s housing was designed to thermally isolate it from the rocket in order to keep the temperature in the 4° to 49° C range. The payload would remain attached to the Atlas once in orbit yielding an impressive total in-orbit mass of 3,970 kilograms – comparable to the mass of the Soviet’s Sputnik 2 with its spent booster attached.

Each experimental communication package consisted of a command receiver, a transmitter, and an continuous loop tape recorder. The tape recorder, which was borrowed from an Army meteorological satellite development program (which would eventually evolve into NASA’s TIROS program), used 23 meters of 25 micron thick Mylar tape that was capable of providing four minutes of recording or playback time for one voice or up to seven teletype channels. A 13-millimeter metallic contact at the end of the tape loop would automatically switch the system off at the end of the message. Upon command from the ground, the package would either record or playback a stored message. Alternatively the system could be commanded to relay a live message from one ground station to another. To reduce power consumption, the receiver was normally kept in a stand by mode where it was turned on for only a quarter of a second every 2.5 seconds to listen for commands from the ground. In addition to the experimental communication package, a pair of Minitrack telemetry beacons similar to those used by the early Explorer satellites was also carried.

The Mission

Not unexpectedly, the Project SCORE schedule proved to be a bit too ambitious and the launch date slipped several weeks. Delays with Atlas B test flights and more launch failures also contributed to the scheduling problems. The first Atlas B launch, number 3B launched from Launch Complex 11 (LC-11) on July 19, 1958, failed but the second test flight using Atlas 4B from LC-13 on August 2 met its goal by flying more than 4,000 kilometers downrange. After two more successful test flights, the first hotrod Atlas, number 6B, was launched on September 18 from LC-13 for the first “full range” test but failed. The next successful flight used the second hotrod Atlas, number 12B, launched on November 28, 1958 from LC-14. This flight was completely successful flying 11,326 kilometers downrange exceeding the Atlas nominal 10,000-kilometer design goal in the process. The way was clear to launch Project SCORE.

In the weeks leading up to the launch of Atlas 10B and its Project SCORE payload, security surrounding the project was tightened even further. All but 35 of the 88 people who were aware of the secret Atlas satellite mission had been purposely misinformed that it had been cancelled and were told to keep quiet about it in order to minimize the chances of an embarrassing leak in case of an all-to-common Atlas failure. And in case of a failure, the true mission of Atlas 10B was not to be divulged by the remaining 35 people. To the rest of the world, the launch of Atlas 10B would look like just another ICBM test flight.

When the launch of Atlas 10B with its secret communication payload finally took place on the night of December 18, 1958 at 23:02 GMT from LC-11, only a handful of people at the Cape actually knew its true mission. As ground controllers monitored the quickly ascending Atlas’ progress, an apparent “malfunction” occurred near the end of powered flight. Inexplicably ground computers monitoring the impact point of the missile generated a cryptic error message informing controllers that there was no impact point. Because of the secrecy surrounding Project SCORE, not even the ground controllers were aware that there was no malfunction and that Atlas 10B had instead entered a 177 by 1,480 kilometer orbit with an inclination of 32.3 degrees and a period of 101.5 minutes.

Once in orbit, the USAF immediately heralded the event making special note of the nearly four metric ton orbital mass (which consisted almost entirely of the now inert Atlas missile). While the primary communication package failed during the first orbit when its tape recorder jammed, the backup package continued to function. During the 13th orbit on December 19, the following recorded Christmas message from President Eisenhower which had been loaded on the tape recorder via radio in the hours before launch was transmitted:

“This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one: Through this unique means I convey to you and to all mankind, America’s wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere”

With this first broadcast of a human voice from outer space from the world’s first comsat, Project SCORE’s launch vehicle was dubbed “the talking Atlas” by the press.

During the following dozen days, 28 separate messages were played back 78 times for a total of 5 hours, 12 minutes of operation. The Project SCORE experiment also relayed 11 real-time messages for a total of 43 minutes over distances in excess of 4,800 kilometers. An undetermined number of unauthorized recordings and interrogations were also made from unidentified sites in the Eastern hemisphere during the mission indicating the need for more secure command systems in future communication satellites.

The experimental communication package operated until December 30, 1958 when the battery was finally exhausted. Atmospheric drag brought the now silent Atlas out of orbit on January 21, 1959. While Project SCORE was to some extent a USAF publicity stunt designed to garner public support, it did show that a satellite could provide a much needed communication link between distant sites. It also paved the way for the Atlas to serve as a launch vehicle for future programs including Project Mercury. To commemorate the significance of the Project SCORE achievement, on March 21, 2013 the Library of Congress announced that President Eisenhower’s recording was to be preserved as part of the National Recording Registry.

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Related Video

Here is a short Universal-International newsreel, “Atlas in Orbit”, describing the Project SCORE launch.

Related Reading

“The First Atlas Test Flights”, Drew Ex Machina, June 11, 2015 [Post]

General References

David Baker, The Rocket, Crown Publishers, 1978

S.P Brown and G.F. Senn, “Project SCORE”, Proceedings of the IRE, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 624-630, April 1960

Deane Davis, “The Talking Satellite: Reminiscence of Project SCORE”, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 52, No. 7/8, pp. 239-258, July/August 1999

Chuck Walker with Joel Powell, Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon, Apogee Books, 2005