Defense Satellite Communications

The navy started to experiment with the moon as a sort of reflector in 1954 and in 1959 it successfully established a communication link between Washington D.C. and Hawaii.

Project SCORE (acronym for Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was the first artificial military satellite that was launched in 1958 to demonstrate that Atlas missiles could be put into orbit.

Demonstrating how communications repeaters built into the missiles functioned was a secondary objective. A repeater received signals, amplified them and then retransmitted them. The transmissions also included Eisenhower’s Christmas message.

Courier was the next satellite. This satellite of a higher capacity had longer life than SCORE but still it existed for only 17 days after the second launch which took place in 1960. Advent satellite in 1960 was the next more advanced satellite but in 1962 it was cancelled.