The Progress Of Satellite Communications

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union shocked the people of the United States by successfully launching the first Earth orbiting satellite, Sputnik. America's first satellite

On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first ever satellite, Sputnik. The launch of Sputnik sent the United States into a frenzy, beginning the Space Race, and the innovation of technology as a whole. The Space Race most importantly had a major impact on the evolution of the United States’s defense technologies through the launch of Sputnik. The Space Race sparked the United States battle for technological superiority against the USSR, and lead to improvizations in their satellite and satellite defense technologies.

On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, a small satellite, successfully into orbit, and the Space Race truly

In 1948 before the space race began a rhesus monkey was launched into space. Unfortunately, the monkey did not make it out of the atmosphere. Lakia was the first animal to actually make it to space in 1957. She was launched on November 3rd aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2. Following Laika, The Russians launched two more dogs into space. Bella and Strelka launched on August 19, 1960, on the Sputnik 5 along with 40 mice, two rats, a rabbit, some fruit flies and a couple plants. They were the first living things to successfully get to space and return

In addition, the Soviets greatest accomplishments were in the participation in the Space Race. The Soviets successfully launched Sputnik the world's first artificial satellite, October 4, 1957 (Doc F). These achievements showed the world how technologically advanced the Soviets where. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth (Doc F). Valentina Tereshkova became the first women in space (Doc F), and Laika was the first dog in space (Doc F). The Soviet accomplishments will be engraved into Soviet textbooks, but memorialized in human history as

The first major way the space race reflected the situations was politically. The Soviet Union was extremely proud of the Sputnik 1 satellite. Sputnik was a simple satellite that became the first human made object to orbit the Earth on October 4, 1957 (Document E). In

After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle involved the two world’s greatest powers the democratic and capitalist United States against the communist Soviet Union. Beginning later in the 1950s, space would eventually become another very dramatic arena for competition between the U.S and U.S.S.R, each side looked to prove the superiority of their own technology, along with its military firepower and of course their political-economic systems. Sputnik, name of the first of several artificial satellites launched by the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1961. Successfully launched and entered Earth 's orbit. Thus, beginning the space age. The successful launch shocked the

The first unmanned satellite called “Sputnik 1” launched and sent to the space by Soviet Union in 1957.

During the Space Race, the first orbital satellites were sent to outer space. Today, Americans can communicate, predict the weather, and study geodetics because of the satellites that first orbited in space.All satellites and space probes carry specialized radios receiving and transmitting equipment for guidance and control purposes as well as relaying data from space to Earth. Without the first satellite transmission of a human voice in 1958, communication would not be as efficient (Rabinowitch, 1963).

An example of this is the satellite television which was introduced in 1962 with the launch of the Telstar satellite. With this, television signals were able to travel through space to televisions around the world. Another invention that was introduced during this time was the weather satellite. “Kennedy also requested funding to accelerate the use of communication satellites to expand worldwide communications and the use of satellites for worldwide weather observation. Both of these initiatives quickly evolved into major areas of space technology that now serve the global community” (Angelo 29).

They both wanted to make satellites that could orbit the Earth. The Soviet Union launched the first orbiting satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957. A year later The U.S. launched their first satellite, Explorer 1. In 1961, the first man who orbited the earth was from the Soviet Union Yuri Gagarin. The next year John Glenn a U.S. native John Glenn orbited the Earth.

From this technological race came the “Space Race” that led to mankind’s first steps towards exploring the universe beyond Earth. The first move of the Space Race occurred when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite to successfully travel in space, on October 4, 1957. The satellite orbited the Earth for more than ninety days, and its sole capability was to emit a beeping noise only audible on certain radio frequencies (“National Debate Topic…”). The first U.S. satellite, named Explorer 1, was sent into orbit just three months later on January 31, 1958. From these technological advances developed new, more challenging goals such as sending a man into space, which called for the national funding of a program that could push the United States into the forefront of the fight. Thus, NASA was created by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which President Eisenhower signed on July 29, 1958 (“Creation of NASA” 261). This moment did not officially begin the NASA however; the program truly began in 1915 with the creation of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The stated goal of the Committee was to “…supervise and direct the

John Foster Dulles wrote a letter discussing the launch of the Soviet Union’s launch of the first earth satellite. Sputnik I was launched on October 4, 1957 with a cost of 15 million RUB and remained in orbit of the Earth until January 4, 1958. Although it traveled about 70 million kilometers, it did nothing for the people below it. In his letter, he states that while Sputnik is of “considerable technical and scientific importance,” it does not involve any discovery. Additionally, sending humans and animals to outer space, a huge goal of both parties during the Space Race, was rather a fascination than a benefit. Yuri Gagarin became the first human to journey to outer space on April 12, 1961. He became an international celebrity by completing an orbit around the Earth, but he didn’t discover a basic fact about outer space; his journey was merely a stunt. Similarly, Neil Armstrong may have walked the moon first, but it was just an incredible act with no helpful discovery

In 1960 a scientist by the name of Dr. Ivan Getting left his position at Raytheon Company, and armed with the knowledge of what was at the time the most advanced navigational technology in the world, he began developing the Global Positioning System. Together with a team of aerospace engineers and scientists, they started getting into the three dimension global positioning system concept. In 1957, at the start of the Cold War and the Space Race, the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik, the first Soviet satellite. While observing Sputnik, U.S. scientists found out that they could track the satellite’s orbit by listening to the changes in its radio frequency using the Doppler effect, a technique that had previously been used to describe why the pitch of a car’s horn changes as it speeds away. In 1960, the knowledge gained from tracking Sputnik, the U.S Navy was able to launch transit, the first satellite navigational system, which was used to help guide the Navy fleets of missile submarines. In 1967, the U.S. Navy developed the Timation technique, a system that used a highly stable, synchronized clock in the satellite, a technology on which GPS was dependent by 1974, the first clocks were put into orbit. By 1978, the U.S. military launched the first four GPS satellites. Until 1983, GPS technology was available for U.S. military use only, until a tragedy occurred that the benefits of GPS technology could no longer be restricted from civilian use. In 1983, a civilian Korean Air airplane with 269 passengers, was shot down after entering Soviet airspace killing all passengers. In response to this tragedy, President Ronald Reagan said "that when GPS technology was operational, it will be free and available to the world". On Feb. 14, 1989, the first satellite was launched. On July 17, 1995, the GPS was complete. This system consists of 24

The next generation of satellites would start to bring the military and intelligence community the high quality imagery it desired. This series was codenamed GAMBIT. The first, KH-7 was essentially the same as CORONA, but with a better a camera. It featured the same single capsule ejection/recovery system. The great leap forward was when an improved version of this camera was paired with a new satellite design. The KH-8 featured two or three return capsules, solar panels, and more fuel. This allowed these