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Project SCORE
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Project SCORE (Signal Communications Orbit Relay Equipment) was the world’s first communications satellite. Launched in an Atlas rocket on December 18, 1958, SCORE provided a first test of a communications relay system in space and captured world attention by broadcasting a Christmas message via short wave frequency from President Eisenhower through an onboard tape recorder.
The SCORE satellite, an acronym for Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment was designed and built by Kenneth Masterman-Smith, a military communication research engineer, along with other personnel with the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory (SRDL) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
The payload used store and forward technology, weighed 68 kg (150 pounds) and was built into the Atlas rocket. SCORE was placed into a 183 km by 1,481 km (114 mile by 920 mile) orbit, inclined 32.3 degrees, with a period of 101.5 minutes. Its batteries lasted 12 days and it reentered the atmosphere on 21 January 1959. On 18 December 1958, the world's first communications satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The launching device for the communications package was an Air Force Atlas rocket. Both the rocket and its payload were placed in orbit.
The six-month effort was the first endeavor of the then new Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which eventually came to be the prestigious Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and proved that a small, highly focused and versatile research group with appropriate resources was an ideal method to achieve the scientific and technological advances necessary to succeed in the emerging global space race.
SCORE as a research endeavor was an experiment designed to test the feasibility of transmitting messages through the upper atmosphere from one ground station to one or more ground stations. The result of the project was unquestionably a major scientific breakthrough which proved that active communications satellites could provide a means of transmitting messages across the bandwidth from one point to any other on the planet Earth.
SCORE as a geo-political strategy placed the United States at an even technological par with the Soviet Union as a highly functional response to the Sputnik satellites.
The very first transmitted message from space to the world below:
"This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite traveling in outer space. My message is a simple one: Through this unique means I convey to you and all mankind, America's wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere."