The Satcom series was a family of communications satellites originally developed and operated by RCA American Communications (RCA Americom). Satcom was one of the early geostationary satellites; the first were the Syncom

Syncom

Syncom started as a 1961 NASA program for active geosynchronous communication satellites, all of which were developed and manufactured by Hughes Space and Communications...

 series, in 1964. The first Satcom satellite, Satcom 1, was launched on December 13, 1975. The last satellite, Satcom K2, was placed into orbit on November 27, 1985 and was de-orbited in February 2002. Satcom was first superseded and then replaced by the GE series of satellites.

Satcom (which stands for "satellite communication") is an artificial satellite that is used to help telecommunication by reflecting or relaying signals into space and back down to Earth. It is the most powerful form of radio and can cover far more distance and wider areas than other radios. It can also communicate with words, pictures and other forms of information.


The Satcom system passed to General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

 with its purchase of RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

 in 1986. RCA Americom became GE American Communications (GE Americom) and the satellite construction division became GE Astro Space. GE Astro Space was sold to Martin Marietta

Martin Marietta

Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of The Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. The combined company became a leader in chemicals, aerospace, and electronics. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. The...

 (now Lockheed Martin Space Systems

Lockheed Martin Space Systems

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company is one of the four major business divisions of Lockheed Martin. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado with additional sites in Sunnyvale, California; Newtown, Pennsylvania; Huntsville, Alabama; and elsewhere in the US and UK...

) in 1993. In 2001 GE sold GE Americom to SES Global

SES Global

SES S.A. is a global satellite owner and operator based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg and is listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol SESG...

, creating SES Americom

SES Americom

SES Americom was a major commercial satellite operator based in the United States. Formerly RCA Americom and GE Americom, the company became one of the principal parts of SES S.A.....

.

History

Most early commercial communications satellites were built for and operated by telecom companies. RCA, with its own RCA Astro Electronics satellite construction business, identified a role for itself as a satellite owner/operator.

Satcom 1 was used as the launching ground for many cable TV services including HBO

Home Box Office

HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...

, Superstation TBS, the CBN cable network

Christian Broadcasting Network

The Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, is a fundamentalist Christian television broadcasting network in the United States. Its headquarters and main studios are in Virginia Beach, Virginia.-Background:...

 (now ABC Family

ABC Family

ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...

), and The Weather Channel. The satellite spurred the cable television industry to unprecedented heights with the assistance of HBO (who moved their programming from the competing Westar 1

Westar 1

Westar 1 was America's first domestic and commercially launched geostationary communications satellite, launched by Western Union and NASA on April 13, 1974. It was built by Hughes for Western Union, using the HS-333 platform of spin-stabilized satellites. Westar 1 was the first of five Westar...

, where they had been since their nationwide debut in 1975, to Satcom 1 in February 1976). Cable television networks relay signals to ground-based cable television headend

Cable television headend

A cable television headend is a master facility for receiving television signals for processing and distribution over a cable television system. The headend facility is normally unstaffed and surrounded by some type of security fencing and is typically a building or large shed housing electronic...

s using satellites, which allowed cable TV to enter into the suburban and metropolitan markets, thus allowing HBO to accumulate 1.6 million subscribers by the end of 1977.

A notable legal battle involved Ted Turner

Ted Turner

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...

 suing RCA to get a Satcom 1 transponder in 1980 for the launch of CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 on June 1, 1980. CNN had been scheduled for a Satcom 3 transponder but that satellite had been destroyed upon launch on December 7, 1979.

Shortly after its launch, Satcom 1 was the first satellite used by broadcast TV networks in the United States, like ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

, NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, and CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, to distribute their programming to some of their local affiliate stations which had before, and at that time, relied on AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

's terrestrial microwave & coaxial networks to distribute & relay programming (although some of NBC's local affiliates were receiving programming via the satellite on an experimental basis in the late '70s). The networks fed to both Satcom 1 and AT&T's network at the same time (for the benefit of those stations who hadn't yet been equipped with earth station

Earth station

A ground station, earth station, or earth terminal is a terrestrial terminal station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft, and/or reception of radio waves from an astronomical radio source. Ground stations are located either on the surface of the Earth, or within Earth's...

 equipment for reception of the satellite) up until the breakup of AT&T

Bell System divestiture

The Bell System divestiture, or the breakup of AT&T, was initiated by the filing in 1974 by the U.S. Department of Justice of an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T. The case, United States v...

 in 1984, when the networks switched exclusively to satellite distribution on Satcom 1 (and later satellites), due to the much lower transmission costs, as well as due to AT&T's divestiture itself.

The reason that Satcom 1 was so widely used by both cable and broadcast TV networks is that it had twice the communications capacity of the competing Westar 1

Westar 1

Westar 1 was America's first domestic and commercially launched geostationary communications satellite, launched by Western Union and NASA on April 13, 1974. It was built by Hughes for Western Union, using the HS-333 platform of spin-stabilized satellites. Westar 1 was the first of five Westar...

 (24 transponders as opposed to Westar 1’s 12), which resulted in lower transponder usage costs in general.

Satellite details

Model	Manufacturer	Launch date	Launch vehicle	NSSDC ID	Comments
Satcom 1	RCA Astro Electronics	December 12, 1975	Delta 3000 Delta rocket Delta is a versatile family of expendable launch systems that has provided space launch capability in the United States since 1960. There have been more than 300 Delta rockets launched, with a 95 percent success rate. Two Delta launch systems – Delta II and Delta IV – are in active use...	1975-117A
Satcom 2	RCA Astro Electronics	March 26, 1976	Delta 3000
Satcom 3	RCA Astro Electronics	December 7, 1979	Delta 3000	1979-101A	Failure during GTO Geostationary transfer orbit A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit is a Hohmann transfer orbit used to reach geosynchronous or geostationary orbit.... , destroyed
Satcom 1R	RCA Astro Electronics	April 11, 1983	Delta 3000		Replaced Satcom 1
Satcom 2R	RCA Astro Electronics	September 8, 1983	Delta 3000
Satcom 3R	RCA Astro Electronics	November 20, 1981	Delta 3000		Replaced destroyed Satcom 3
Satcom 4	RCA Astro Electronics	January 16, 1982	Delta 3000
Satcom 5	RCA Astro Electronics	October 28, 1982	Delta 3000		Aurora 1, still on 105.2'W (2006)http://www.sat-index.com/geo/13631.html
Satcom 4R	Hughes	November 8, 1984	STS-51-A STS-51-A STS-51-A was the second flight of Space Shuttle Discovery, and the 14th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center on 8 November 1984, and landed just under eight days later on 16 November....  (Discovery Space Shuttle Discovery Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the retired orbiters of the Space Shuttle program of NASA, the space agency of the United States, and was operational from its maiden flight, STS-41-D on August 30, 1984, until its final landing during STS-133 on March 9, 2011... )		Launched as Anik D2, purchased in orbit
Satcom C1	GE Astro Space	November 20, 1990	Ariane 42P Ariane 4 Ariane 4 was an expendable launch system, designed by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales and manufactured and marketed by its subsidiary Arianespace. Ariane 4 was justly known as the ‘workhorse’ of the Ariane family. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the last, on 15 February 2003, it...		Replaced Satcom 1R
Satcom C3	GE Astro Space	September 11, 1992	Ariane 44LP Ariane 4 Ariane 4 was an expendable launch system, designed by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales and manufactured and marketed by its subsidiary Arianespace. Ariane 4 was justly known as the ‘workhorse’ of the Ariane family. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the last, on 15 February 2003, it...
Satcom C4	GE Astro Space	August 31, 1992	Delta II Delta II Delta II was an American space launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II is part of the Delta rocket family and was in service from 1989 until November 1, 2011...  (7925)	1992-057A
Satcom C5	GE Astro Space	May 29, 1991	Delta II (7925)	1991-037A	Aurora 2http://www.tbs-satellite.com/tse/online/sat_aurora_2.html
Satcom K1	RCA Astro Electronics	January 12, 1986	STS-61-C STS-61-C -Mission parameters:*Mass:**Orbiter liftoff: **Orbiter landing: **Payload: *Perigee: *Apogee: *Inclination: 28.5°*Period: 91.2 min-Mission background:...  (Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew... )
Satcom K2	RCA Astro Electronics	November 27, 1985	STS-61-B STS-61-B STS-61-B was NASA's 23rd Space Shuttle mission, and its second using Space Shuttle Atlantis. The shuttle was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 26 November 1985. During STS-61-B, the shuttle crew deployed three communications satellites, and tested techniques of constructing...  (Atlantis Space Shuttle Atlantis The Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter in the Space Shuttle fleet belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration , the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States... )
Satcom K3	GE Astro Space	March 2, 1991	Ariane 44LP	1991-015A	Sold during construction to SES SES Astra Astra is the name for the geostationary communication satellites, both individually and as a group, which are owned and operated by SES S.A., a global satellite operator based in Betzdorf, in eastern Luxembourg. The name is sometimes also used to describe the channels broadcasting from these... ; launched as Astra 1B Astra 1B Astra 1B was the second satellite launched and operated by Société Européenne des Satellites , now SES Astra. It was bought during its construction from GE Americom, and was launched to add extra capacity to the satellite television services from 19.2° east, serving Germany, the UK and Republic of...
Satcom K4	GE Astro Space	June 9, 1992	Atlas 2		Sold during construction to Intelsat Intelsat Intelsat, Ltd. is a communications satellite services provider.Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization , it was—from 1964 to 2001—an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international broadcast...

Sources

• http://www.astronautix.com/project/satcom.htm
• http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/satcom-1.htm