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Arthur C. Clarke's paper on geostationary orbit of a spacecraft enabling 24 hour radio coverage on a global scale.
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John Pierce of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Bell Laboratories published an article on the precise power requirements to transmit signals to satellites in various Earth orbits. He developed the traveling wave tube amplifier which was essential in enabling a satellite to receive, amplify and transmit radio signals to achieve wide coverage of radio signals to listeners on Earth.
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First artificial satellite launched by the Soviet Union, orbiting Earth in an elliptical orbit and transmitted signals for 22 days until its battery ran out.
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First satellite to relay voice signals of "peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere" from US President Eisenhower from US government's Project SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment)
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Echo 1 passive satellite contained no instruments and only reflected signals at random back to Earth, showing little practicality in other applications of communication. Echo 2 in 1964 was NASA's last passive satellite.
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John Pierce developed Telstar 1 as the first active satellite capable of two-way communications. It was the first satellite to transmit live television between Europe and North America, and the first phone call via satellite.
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Syncom 3 made by Hughes Aircraft successfully did a broadcast of the 1964 Olympic Games from Tokyo to the US, a first in broadcast via satellite.
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11 original countries, Austria, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, UK, US, the Vatican and West Germany signed the Intelsat Interim Agreement to cooperate in further satellite communications development.
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Intelsat's first satellite Early Bird (A.K.A Intelsat 1) was launched and provided regular telecommunications and broadcasting services between North America and Europe.
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The Soviet Union developed a series of Molniya satellites in a highly elliptical orbit to reach further north of Russia. Molniya 1 was launched April 23 1965