Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1962)

Relay, the RCA-built, 172 lb. communications satellite, is covered with over 8,000 solar cells which convert sunlight into electrical energy. This cutaway picture shows the internal cruciform construction and the mounting proper time the hexagonal-shaped electronic relay went into the proper orbit. A second Relay is scheduled to be launched next year and a third is being held in reserve. This is the second in a series of active repeater satellites for communications. The first, Telstar, built by AT&T, became operative July 10 and provided the first transoceanic tv spectacular as well as voice and teletype communications via space between the U. S. and England and France. Telstar was launched by NASA, but AT&T paid the government $2.7 million for its services in putting Telstar into orbit. A pioneer Syncom (Synchronous Communications) satellite is expected to be orbited sometime next year. Under manufacture by Hughes Aircraft for NASA, this will indicate the feasibility of placing satellites 22,300 miles 54 (EQUIPMENT & ENGINEERING) of the communications components and other space experiment assemblies. Relay's tail is the unique wideband antenna, weighing only 2Vi lbs. At the top of the satellite are the telemetry antennas. above the earth so that they remain above the same spot. This will permit only three satellites to cover 90% of the earth's surface; the lower orbits will require large numbers to accomplish this. Relay will circumnavigate the earth three times daily, with mutual visibility between the eastern and western hemispheres limited to from 20 to 55 minutes each pass. It has a transmission capacity of one tv channel or 300 voice channels, on a one-way wide band communications circuit; less than that for two-way use. For wideband operation the government is using 1725 mc for ground-tosatellite signals, and 4170 mc for satellite-to-ground transmissions. Built by RCA under a NASA contract at a cost of roughly $1.5 million, the eight-sided Relay satellite is cov ered by over 8,000 solar cells to convert sunlight into electrical energy for its 60 nickel-cadmium batteries. It is 33-inches high, and about 29-inches wide at its broadest section. The wideband communications antenna, extending from the narrow end, is 18-inches long and weighs only 2V2 pounds. All the equipment in the cruciform-shaped satellite is duplicated, which will permit it to continue functioning even after one piece of equipment goes out. Dr. Raymond M. Wilmotte, a former radio consulting engineer in Washington, was manager of the Relay project at RCA's Astro-Electronics Div. He was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Tv Allocations and of the FCC's Radio Propagation Advisory Committee in the early days of television and fm. In addition to the duplication of transmitters and receivers in the satellite, Relay has a specially designed traveling wave tube capable of amplifying the weakest signals 1 trillion times. Inside the spacecraft are more than 6,000 components. Electronics merger dropped Merger discussions by two California electronics firms have been called off. In a joint statement by their presidents Robert S. Bell of Packard Bell Electronics Corp., Los Angeles, and Ray E. Marquardt of the Marquardt Corp., Pomona, said, "A mutual exchange of information indicates that our respective operations could not be joined in the manner we had hoped." A Red Telstar' The first launching of a synchronous tv satellite by the Soviet Union is expected soon, according to Russian scientists reported in Gazeta Pomorska, a daily newspaper. While no date has been announced for the launching, Prof. K. Sergeyev is quoted as saying that the launching of the first satellite "should happen in the very near future." Aleksander Kakunin, vice minister of communications in the USSR, is reported as stating that the Soviet tv satellite will be put into a 24-hour orbit at an altitude of 38,000 km (23,612 miles). Another quotation by N. Varvarov, identified as an "astronautical commentator," relates that the ground "cosmovision center" will beam programs to the satellite twice a day (11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 11 p.m.-3 a.m.) and receive programs from the satellite also twice a day (from 3 a.m.11 a.m. and 3 p.m.-ll p.m.). BROADCASTING, December 17. 1962