When the Telstar 1 satellite successfully launched 50 years ago, the world got a little smaller. Telstar, a collaboration between U.S., French, and British broadcasting agencies, was the world’s first active communication satellite, enabling TV programs to be broadcast across the Atlantic. The 3-foot-long satellite was also the first to send the television signals, telephone calls, and fax images through space. Before Telstar was launched, microwave towers could flash TV shows and other communication information from point to point through the air, supplementing the landlines that already crisscrossed the globe. But once these signals reached the ocean, they reached their limit. Satellite transmission allowed instantaneous communication – such as long-distance phone calls and real-time international TV – to become an everyday reality. The phrase “live, via satellite” is only possible with Telstar and the machines that followed it into space. So, in tribute to Telstar 1, here we look back on the little satellite that helped make the modern world. Above: Tiny Satellite Telstar 1 was built as an international collaboration between AT&T, Bell Labs, NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National Post, Telegraph, and Telecom Office. The satellite launched on a Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. The aluminum satellite was wimpy by modern standards. It used 14 watts of power – roughly one-seventh that of a modern laptop – generated by the 3,600 solar panels on its outer hull. As well, it could only carry 600 phone calls and one black-and-white TV channel, though not much more was really needed at the time. Telstar 1 was placed in low Earth orbit and circled the planet every two and a half hours, only in the right position to beam transmissions between Europe and the U.S. for 20 minutes each orbit. This is in contrast to contemporary communications satellites, which fly in geosynchronous orbit, staying above one spot on the Earth. Image: NASA Goddard

First Broadcast Telstar 1 transmitted its first image — a video of a flag outside a TV station in Andover, Maine — on July 11, 1962. But the truly historic event happened 13 days after launch, when the satellite relayed its first live transatlantic broadcast. Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley – then newscasters on rival TV stations — and the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby hosted the show. The program started with a picture of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower side by side, each coming from different sides of the world. “The plain facts of electronic life are that Washington and the Kremlin are now no farther apart than the speed of light, at least technically,” Cronkite said during the first historic broadcast. In a very prescient moment, he added that the ability to portray immediacy was the true significance of this new communications bridge. The moment brought television journalism into the modern age. Before this, video reels had to travel across the ocean by airplane. Often, events shown in TV news were several days late – ancient history compared to newspapers and radio. The transatlantic program also featured a major league baseball game from Chicago and images of NASA facilities. The segment ended with a press conference of President Kennedy, talking about the price of the dollar. At that moment, European gold markets were fluctuating over rumors that the U.S. would be devaluing the dollar. When asked about the rumors by a reporter, Kennedy firmly denied them, almost immediately causing the dollar to strengthen in Europe. Video: NASA

Pop Culture Telstar Telstar 1’s had a strong influence on popular culture. In the year of its launch, a band called The Tornados recorded an odd instrumental track called “Telstar.” The Space Age novelty song was full of strange noises meant to mimic radio transmissions, and featured a clavioline, an early electronic keyboard instrument and forerunner to the analog synthesizer. Some of the sound effects on the record were produced by running a pen around the rim of an ashtray and then playing the tape of it in reverse. The song was a major hit and is the only instrumental single to be number one on both the British and U.S. weekly charts. It was subsequently covered many times. Video: Youtube/chessmoon

Satellite Soccer Though it’s often forgotten these days, Telstar 1 has entered the popular consciousness in many different ways. If you ask the average person to think of a soccer ball, it’s likely that they will imagine Telstar. The iconic black-and-white hexagonal soccer ball patter was first created for the 1970 World Cup and was designed to strongly resemble the Telstar satellite. The satellite has also lent its name to a number of other pop-culture items — most of them not as famous as the soccer ball — including a record company, a Dutch soccer team, a Ford automobile, and a videogame console. Image: Flickr/Shine 2010 – 2010 World Cup good news

All About Telstar This half-hour video from the AT&T archives is an early documentary about the building and launching of Telstar 1. The 1960s retro feel may pull you back to an earlier time, when the promises of the Space Age were still far ahead and quite hopeful. Video: Youtube/ATTTechChannel