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| Telstar I |
No, there were no live overseas broadcasts before the 1960s. Today we take for granted the pioneering technology
that was one of the hallmarks of this remarkable decade.
On July 11, 1962, Telstar 1, the world’s first
private communications satellite, relayed the first television pictures through
space — a non-public transmission of a flag outside the satellite earth station
in Andover, Maine. It had been launched
the day before. On July 23, 1962, it
relayed the first publicly available live transatlantic television signal – a broadcast featuring CBS's Walter
Cronkite and NBC's Chet Huntley in New York, and the BBC's Richard Dimbleby in
Brussels. The first pictures were the Statue of Liberty in New York and the
Eiffel Tower in Paris.
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| Walter Cronkite |
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| Thor-Delta rocket launch |
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Belonging to AT&T, the original Telstar was part
of a multi-national agreement between AT&T, Bell Telephone Laboratories,
NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National PTT (Post,
Telegraph & Telecom Office) to develop experimental satellite
communications over the Atlantic Ocean. Ironically, it was rendered inoperable
only a few months later by high altitude nuclear weapons testing, but it
remains in orbit to this day.
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