BEHIND THE SCENES WITH TELSTAR

[Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] the place and over maine [Music] the date july 9th 1962 what will tomorrow bring for hundreds of telephone men and women this is the end of the beginning telephone men drive through the lonely hills of andover to make final tests on the electronic gear that may or may not find and communicate with telstar a tiny spinning globe thousands of miles in space tomorrow holds the answer will month on month of concentrated effort end in success or failure the men at andover control who will talk to telstar are betting on success that's irv welber at the right he's test conductor for bell labs the andover control room is manned by both bell labs and long lines people starting [Applause] ut command tracker report command ops ready precision track ready tg ready data ready receiver ready transmitter is ready ground control is ready director this is communications control communications control while the men at andover continue their checks another group of telephone scientists at home dell new jersey prepare for their part of the test this is the horn that two years before had caught the signals from the echo balloon facelock receiver phase like receiver operating satisfactory calibrations is normal check i have the dac report drive tape ready drive tape is ready clock synchronized the clock is synchronized air buffer is checked the error buffer is checked okay that's bill jakes test conductor oh andover homedale here yes we're all set ready to go on the other side of the atlantic in a quiet corner of brittany france another great horn antenna beneath its ray dome waits it's a twin sister of the horn at andover across the channel at goon hilly down in cornwall the british also wait england france andover holmdel all eyes now are on cape canaveral florida where the bird telstar awaits its chance to be our first active communication satellite in space if all goes well all stations report for communications check antenna the project is a unique example of government and private industry working together telstar was designed and built by bell labs the bell system will pay the government to launch it into space bell labs and western electric men of the guidance control group our old hands here these are the men who have successfully guided nearly a hundred rockets precisely to their destination they started back when the bell system designed the guidance system for the titan one missile they've been all through the delta rocket series echo1 tyros two of the explorer satellites and others john del bora there at the right is in charge [Music] the group's years of experience have been with rockets that carried many different kinds of payloads dummy warheads weather instruments instruments to study the sun and magnetic fields now they're getting ready to guide a payload that's closer to home a communications satellite this is spacecraft nearby in telstar control are the telephone men who must make certain the sphere is in prime condition up to and through its launch the launch itself will be under the direction of the national aeronautics and space administration console is ready tracker is ready that's nelson up to grove he's head of satellite launch operations for bell labs telstar control this is spacecraft advisor the range status is go the mission director just gave a go to the block house on the blockhouse firing line a fourth team again nasa and douglas aircraft and aerojet backing up the bell system for all a common target a mutual objective telstar receives the shielding that will protect it in the abrasive journey through earth's atmosphere the launch is set for 3 35 a.m eastern standard time the launch vehicle is the 90-foot three-stage delta successful in nine space ventures the final count is coming up all systems are green at all sites the word is go as the countdown approaches the thoughts of many telephone men must have raced backwards over the months and years of preparation that made this moment possible back for instance to 1954 at the bell telephone laboratories in murray hill new jersey there dr john pierce had first suggested a practical system for using satellites to communicate across the oceans even then there was little doubt of the eventual need for improved means of communicating overseas [Music] across the united states microwave towers dot the horizon great volumes of messages and tv shows are flashed from point to point supplementing other landlines to help provide the channels the nation requires but when the ocean is reached there are no towers a tower in the ocean tall enough to do the job or a string of towers is obviously impractical but if such a tower could fly then americans and all the people of the world would have an exciting addition to their communications toolkits a ring of flying microwave towers could assure continuous overseas transmission this was the dream and now eight years later the dream was becoming real other men's thoughts must have raced back a year and a half to andover but it was a far far different and over them a man who was there can tell the story this is burdick pierce of long lines my job was at andover in western maine near the new hampshire border it's pretty rugged country at the beginning the only telephone service we had was a 27 party line it was up to us to clear the site and build earth station one logging is a big industry in the area this local chopper as they call him can knock down a big tree strip its branches and saw it into lengths in 10 minutes we timed him one day [Music] long line bought a thousand acres here but we cleared less than a hundred there's lots of room left for more antennas when they're needed in the future incidentally from birch like this a local mill makes a million dollars a year for western electric 10 000 visitors a week come here now but you'd never have guessed it then there was a swamp at the best location for the control building and we had to pump water 24 hours a day nearly all the several hundred people on the job were local i once counted up 57 main suppliers helping us at andover earth station one will be a kind of long distance central office so long lines has basic responsibilities here just as they have with underseas cables and radio links which provide overseas service there are a lot of things the natives said couldn't be done things like building three miles of road in winter but we did them long lines engineers picked this location for several reasons it's far enough from land microwave relay routes to avoid interference it's in a good spot for transatlantic tests and close enough so we could tie into the regular bell system telephone network it's in a shallow bowl surrounded by mountains that are high enough to cut off stray radio interference but they're not so high as to block our signal to telstar we call the place space hill the footings for the antenna were taken down to bedrock the requirements of that big horn are so exacting that an absolutely stable foundation was a must just remember that the horn must track a target several thousand miles away with fantastic accuracy you can see the need for a solid base and rigidity in the structure itself to shelter the big horn while it was being assembled we put up the biggest inflated structure ever built [Music] the reason we put up the radome was to eliminate wind stress icing and rapid temperature changes they could affect the accuracy of the antenna [Music] the horn was built and test assembled back in new jersey then it was taken apart and shipped to andover just getting it to the site was a major problem because the parts were so heavy like that 70 foot diameter rotating wheel was winter time and besides reinforcing bridges we moved at night when the local roads were frozen so we wouldn't damage them when the horn was finished we put up the permanent radome the fabric would cover three acres if laid out flat it's made of dacron and synthetic rubber a sixteenth of an inch thick the material is transparent to radio waves that's why it's used instead of some kind of wood or metal covering the radome weighs 20 tons yet it will be held rigidly in place by air pressure it takes less than a tenth of a pound per square inch in fact an oversized attic fan would be enough to keep it inflated this 16 story balloon will stand up to a 100 mile an hour hurricane when the permanent ray dome was pulled over and lashed down the temporary cover was collapsed beneath it and removed of course the big horn couldn't do its job without the control building where telephone equipment from western electric and electronic gear furnished by bell labs was installed by the new england company but men and equipment and buildings are only part of the story how about telstar itself let's have the bell labs project director gene o'neal standing there on the left tell us something about that the work of many men over many years made telstar possible research and development that had been ahead of immediate needs now paid off when the idea of communicating by satellite came along bell labs had many products of research on hand to help make it work the know-how to build big things for instance like the andover antenna it weighs 380 tons yet it's built with the relative accuracy of a fine watch so precise that it can track its target within three thousandths of a degree it's five times more sensitive than its forerunner at homedell new jersey at the heart of each of these huge antennas is a special fm feedback receiver and a ruby mesa that operates at 450 degrees below zero together they pick up a faint signal from telstar only one trillionth of a watt and boost it back to a usable level then there were little but vital things like transistors telstar couldn't relay messages without transistors neither could rockets be so precisely directed or controlled they were solar batteries that take power from the sun and keep telstar's electronic gear alive these products of telephone research who are on hand when the time came for us to put the first telstar together at our hillside new jersey location that story of the design and construction of telstar is a fabulous one here is a group of labs engineers headed by bob shenam there at the left who worked on the project several such groups contributed each made up of people in a great many different fields each group took a small piece of a very complex problem and solved it then they put all the pieces together nobody had ever built such a satellite before there were no blueprints no belt system practices i guess in the beginning no one really knew for sure whether telstar would be round or square or whatever working in a dust-free atmosphere they face the problem of crowding 10 000 electronic parts into a 34 and a half inch sphere they pack them into a magnesium frame with an aluminum shell on the shell they mounted 3 600 special solar cells each covered by synthetic sapphire to shield it from radiation and all the while they were fighting time talk about deadlines telstar was developed in a year and a half a job like that normally might take five years or more bob shenan's group built several telstars the first models were different because each had a special test purpose the others were identical one for the launch the rest for standby nothing was left to chance this test which imitates the spinning of the satellite in the earth's magnetic field was just one example another was the vibration test [Music] in a specially built chamber which simulates some of the conditions in space they tested transmission and solar batteries on the artificial suns telstar was a very special job yet i like to think the great care and creative effort that went into it are typical of what bell labs does regularly to help belt system people give good telephone service on a brilliant june day telstar arrives at canaveral after its thousand-mile journey from new jersey security police form its escort missiles and payloads are royalty at canaveral del star rides in a special air-conditioned truck it's being delivered to the bell labs men in telstar control who will baby the satellite along every moment until it takes to the skies they won't ask favors of lady luck their confidence will come from testing at every step of the way [Music] after transfer from truck to telstar satellite van a band goes around the new stars equator cables are attached for another tough physical and solar cells antenna satellite transmission and telemetry are checked okay so far smoothly fitting into the timetable douglas starts the movement of its booster onto the launching area and into the gantry the meticulous time-consuming seating of the rocket on the pad begins telstar moves to nasa's spin test building there it is mated to the third stage booster that package of highly dangerous explosive that will give telstar its final orbital speed and start its spin through space spring steel coils tightly ready to thrust the bird from the nest [Music] on the spin table it is rotated as it will be in the sky 180 revolutions a minute [Music] safe behind dugout walls the douglas engineers performed the dangerous task of balancing the spinning satellite and booster to guarantee stability in space [Music] again the band and the cables spin test antenna to telstar antenna to telstar control check and recheck [Music] canned for protection and transport the messenger of space moves on its cautious way up the gantry [Music] telstar weighs in at 170 pounds its family tree is an impressive history for every one of its components was subjected to months of life tests and pedigree papers were accumulated on each part with this sort of survival of the fittest approach telstar should have the making of a champion it's a million dollar baby and every move it makes is watched by anxious guardians [Applause] third stage and satellite lower gently to a mating with the second stage marked to mark [Music] telstar travel plans call for an elliptical orbit with a low point of 600 miles a high point of 3500 miles an elapsed time of about 2 hours and 40 minutes for each orbit when your company has staked its reputation on an experiment like this you can't help wanting to see the preparations that's the way it is with board chairman fred kappel he spends the day before the launch making a complete tour of cape canaveral and visiting the telephone groups working there with him here are nelson up to grove in the center and at the left julius molnar executive vice president of the labs after the launch he will fly to andover for the big test bob gray of nasa led the gantry tour [Music] every employee stakes the company's reputation with the public every day just by the way he or she gives telephone service but this is a bigger gamble and everybody senses the excitement again the cables are attached for one last examination check and recheck [Music] there are contradictions in this kind of pioneering nylon gloves in a bare fisted fight contamination is an enemy and thundering explosive forces subjected to minute checks [Music] the cable is removed the last connection made the face of a cell fastened the baby is buttoned up the fairing goes on clamshells seal against earth's atmosphere p-pod to be tossed aside in space no more check and recheck telstar is on its own [Music] day merges into night the gantry pulls back for better or for worse delta rocket and mated telstar satellite stand alone [Music] now the order comes clear the area [Music] only launch personnel are left the final count [Music] stand by to pick up the count on my mark four separate groups linked by a communication system bell labs guidance telstar control nasa's mission control and nasa douglas and aerojet in the block house uh watch director to mission director commission director here uh will you give me the mission status please the mission is go ah roger thank you control steering checks are complete the radar is preparing for guidance uh roger report btl status uh btl's ready launch director we have received clear to launch minus 50. start remote camera number one started zero dark plus one six seven [Music] dtl's tracking tracking okay dtl [Music] plus 70 seconds mark btl tracking first stage guidance okay on course pitch up signal at this time there's a little you all right looks good in azimuth still a little pitch up sequence two sequence three sequence four separation very good [Music] spin up and burnout have been reported andover this is telstar control at canaro we've got good news downrange station antigua reports third stage burnout scene doppler track at the cape looks good i think we've got our orbit we'll keep you posted as to what we see roger we will initiate test series on fifth pass when pinpoint orbit is assured cape canaveral says to andover we put it up there now you talk to it but telstar isn't yet in position hours must pass then command tracker precision tracker big horn fasten on its predicted path aiming at an infinitesimal spec in space racing along at 16 000 miles an hour like finding a golf ball over 200 miles away director this is ground control mission state established roger station is in mission state and search condition operators hold on this line pending satellite expected rise time sending station identification the satellite is rising over the horizon we have a detected it's like the command tracker has acquired roger the telemetry just went into lock bullseye andover is dead on target having found it now can we talk to it a t vice president joe cook at andover is master of ceremonies for a television broadcast with the whole world watching the bell system has laid its reputation on the line with newsmen and photographers looking on the experiment is out in the open in the american way fail or succeed the chips are down fail or succeed the presses will roll the television cameras scan the event will telstar work in washington dc distinguished guests wait and watch expectantly before the large closed circuit tv screen vice president johnson is there with eugene mcnealy president of a t and senators kerr and smith congressman miller harris and albert senators dirksen symington magnuson and pastore and administrator web of nasa and the federal communications commission watches the show at handover the first test is coming up will telstar receive from earth amplify and return a telephone message to earth fred kappel will speak with the vice president of the united states the patch cords go up [Music] good evening mr vice president this is fred kappel calling from the earth station at andover maine the call is being relayed through our telstar satellite as i am sure you know how do you hear me you're coming through nicely mr cappell well that's wonderful since you're also head of the space cons mr vice president i suppose you followed with considerable interest the activities today which have resulted in this call the first telephone message in the world as a matter of fact over an active satellite indeed i have a mr capital the progress of the satellite from the time it was launched early this morning from cape canaveral by the national aeronautics and space administration has been most gratifying to all americans i'm sure millions of them have been proud of the this achievement which is another first in our conquest of space well i think the people of this country are pleased with this demonstration of cooperation between government and private industry the teamwork this morning at cape canaveral which i witnessed was outstanding i quite agree and i think this is a matter of satisfaction for every citizen of the nation i'm certain that the results of the telestar test will be most valuable in providing some of the knowledge needed to bring into operations a very fine commercial communication satellite system well we're most hopeful of this and certainly pleased at this performance so far good night sir and thank you a great deal [Music] full steam andover plunges into a second big question can telstar handle the special requirements of television the picture of old glory goes out into space and telstar sends it back the answer lifts american hearts then a bonus a surprise an unexpected first we just get an announcement right now this is the french station has the picture it's an excellent clear picture you mean we've made an international telecast well let me congratulate you then a photograph of telstar is transmitted to the satellite and sent back to earth the first facsimile transmission next two news stories flash from earth to satellite to earth data transmission at over a thousand words a minute the reaction everywhere to tell star success is tremendous senator margaret chase smith says as a former employee of the telephone company i'm delighted with this inspiring success of the telstar but as a member of the senate space committee i'm even more delighted senator everett dirksen of illinois is enthusiastic but i salute private industry i salute the bell system for a marvelous job well done it still goes to show the vitality of the private enterprise system in the united states and that it can surmount every obstacle and senator robert s kerr of oklahoma the american team of private industry and government have brought this great achievement under god into being at andover fcc chairman newton minnow said today's effort i think offers to people everywhere the benefits of the marriage of space technology and the science of communications we now have an increased opportunity to improve the flow of information among all nations to surmount the walls of ignorance and prejudice and to use mass communications hopefully to avoid mass destruction and what we're learning today will lead to a further development of the a worldwide satellite communication system speaking for my colleagues and the staff of the commission we're proud to participate here today and we salute our fellow citizens both of the communications industry and of the space agency whose talents and dedication are responsible for this historic achievement for telephone people particularly jim fisk president of the laboratories the suspense is over jim how do you feel how long is that well you don't have to ask me that do you know you know how i feel delighted it's been a wonderful achievement by this large and very costly everything has gone along pretty much as you hoped it would as as best as anyone could hopefully eugene mcneely is deeply moved well of course joe i'm delighted and i'm proud to be among all these people here in government who have been so extremely helpful to the progress this very great progress that we in america have made gene o'neil had a masterpiece of understatement to make well how do you feel i think it's pretty good for a first attempt don't you joe well i i think it's awfully good but the end is not yet the following day telstar brings a voice and a face from france then come the picture and the dry understatement of our english cousins left i have john taylor who is in charge of our space research and development then the first international telephone calls between eugene mcneely and communication officials in france and england in an historic first president kennedy's press conference is televised overseas i understand that part of today's press conference is being relayed by the telestar communications satellite to viewers across the atlantic and this is another indication of the extraordinary world in which we live so we're glad to participate in this operation developed by private industry launched by government in admirable cooperation yes july 10th was a great day all around for telephone people the months of hard work had paid off and nobody appreciated the effort more than board chairman fred kappel telstar is the forerunner of a new and exciting means of worldwide communications as you have all seen it came into being through the imagination ingenuity the skill and devotion of many bell system people i'm proud of all of them who contributed to telstar's success i'm happy to acknowledge the cooperation and understanding of the many in government who've worked with us the support we've received from the administration members of congress the federal communications commission the national aeronautics and space administration and others has enabled us to make the benefits of this experiment available to america and the free world likewise the success of the experiment has convincingly demonstrated for all to see the strength and vitality of our private enterprise system telstar is a notable first and a significant step towards a better worldwide understanding to all who are a part of it in whatever measure congratulations and well done [Music] you