AUGUST 11, 1961 NASA awards the Hughes Aircraft Corporation a contract to build Syncom, an experimental active satellite to be placed into a 22,300-mile-high orbit that will be synchronous with the rotation of the earth. (See page 37 for definitions of various kinds of satellite orbits.) DECEMBER 20, 1961 The United Nations adopts a resolution on the peaceful uses of outer space that includes a request for world cooperation in developing a system of communications satellites. Both the United States and the Soviet Union sign the resolution. FEBRUARY 7, 1962 President Kennedy asked Congress to pass a bill setting up a corporation to operate a satellite communications system. The proposed corporation would be owned jointly by the public at large and the country’s communications common carriers. JULY 10, 1962 Project Telstar is successful. For the first time, voice communications and live television are transmitted across the Atlantic via a man-made satellite that picks up signals sent from one continent, amplifies them, and retransmits them to another continent. (On pages 21 to 33 we talk at further length about Project Telstar.) [Illustration: {uncaptioned}] AUGUST 31, 1962 President Kennedy signs the Communications Satellite Act, establishing a private corporation under government regulation—the Communications Satellite Corporation—which will plan, own, and operate a commercial satellite communications system. [Illustration: {uncaptioned}] DECEMBER 13, 1962 Relay I is launched by NASA. Similar in many ways to the Telstar satellite, it is an active repeater device that picks up telephone, television, and other electronic signals and retransmits them to a distant point. Relay also provides the first satellite communications link between North and South America. The satellite is a tapered cylinder 33 inches long weighing 172 pounds. A mast-like antenna at one end is used to receive and transmit a single television broadcast or 12 simultaneous two-way telephone conversations. Four whip antennas at the other end of the cylinder handle control, tracking, and telemetry—turning experiments on and off and sending information on the behavior of its components and on the amount of radiation it encounters in space. Relay is powered by nickel-cadmium storage batteries that are charged by more than 8,000 solar cells mounted on its eight sides. It contains two identical receiving, amplifying, and transmitting systems called transponders, each with an output of 10 watts. Relay I is traveling in an orbit that ranges from 820 to 4,612 miles high, and circles the earth about every 185 minutes. Soon after it is launched, Relay’s telemetry reports trouble in the voltage regulator of one of the transponders, which causes excessive power drain. On January 3, 1963, the alternate transponder is switched on, and a successful series of tests—including live television broadcasts between the United States and Europe—begins.