Satellite Technology

Military use of satellites has enhanced command and control of far-flung forces, provided vast amounts of data, and enabled precise positioning on the globe. Modern satellites also perform a variety of data-related tasks like reconnaissance, navigation, weather observation, and communications relay. Although the concept of an artificial satellite had existed in the scientific community for years, it was not until after World War II when American and Soviet scientists and engineers—working independently, but both building on the expertise of the Nazi rocket program—finally orbited an artificial satellite.

In May 1946, the RAND Group of Douglas Aircraft released the first comprehensive look at the uses for artificial satellites. The report, Preliminary Design of a WorldCircling Spaceship, looked at the military potential of artificial satellites, and suggested three missions: weather, communications relay, and reconnaissance. However, with significant technological problems to overcome, with an Air Force wedded to airplanes for strategic reconnaissance, and with military budgets shrinking in the wake of World War II, the military largely ignored the potential of satellites until the late 1950s.

The military was not the only organization investigating the usefulness of satellites. In late 1945, British writer Arthur C. Clarke suggested the geostationary orbit as the most useful for communications relay satellites. Today, the ring of geostationary slots where the majority of communications satellites orbit is called the Clarke Belt. In 1951, the British Interplanetary Society speculated on the scientific research applications of an artificial satellite. In 1955, S. Fred Singer proposed his Minimum Orbital Unmanned Satellite of the Earth (MOUSE) to the American Rocket Society as a scientific instrument for studying the upper reaches of the atmosphere, which airplanes and balloons could not reach. Although never adopted, MOUSE was the first satellite program widely talked about in scientific and engineering circles. In the early 1950s, Soviet scientists and engineers published papers and gave talks in an effort to share scientific and engineering knowledge, but also in an effort to show the world that Soviet science and engineering matched the West's capabilities.

In October 1957, the Soviet Union became the first nation to orbit a satellite when an R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik I. The satellite, an aluminum sphere less than two feet in diameter and weighing less than 200 pounds, also launched the field of space law by establishing the precedent of freedom of overflight in space. A month later, the Soviets orbited Sputnik II, an even larger satellite, with a dog as a passenger. On December 6, the United States’ attempt to launch Vanguard I failed spectacularly in a nationally televised rocket blast. The satellite ejected from the booster when it exploded, and beeped helplessly on the ground, earning it the nickname “Kaputnik.” Scientist Wernher von Braun and his team quickly proceeded with their satellite, Explorer I, which launched less than three months later. Instruments aboard detected the Van Allen radiation belts around the Earth. Scientist James Van Allen had built the satellite's Geiger counter and theorized that radiation bombarded it, which was later confirmed by other satellites.

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