This satellite is the heart of a space-based communications system called Iridium. Conceived, designed, and built by Motorola, the Iridium system provides wireless, mobile communications through a network of 66 satellites in polar, low-Earth orbits. Inaugurated in November 1998, under the auspices of Iridium LLC, this complex space system ...
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This artifact is a backup spacecraft, never flown, donated by Intelsat in 2015. This object is on display in One World Connected at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. United States of America SPACECRAFT-Uncrewed-Communications 3-D (175 pounds): 139.7 × 143.5cm, 79.4kg (4 ft. 7 in. × 4 ft. 8 1/2 in., 175lb.)
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The KH-4B was the last and most advanced camera system used in Project Corona, America and the world's first photoreconnaissance satellite program. Between August 1960 and May 1972, when the program ended, 145 Corona satellites were launched and they produced over 800,000 usable images of the USSR and other nations. Film return capsules ...
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This is a replica of Ariel-1 satellite, the world's first internationally conceived and executed satellite. The flight model was designed and built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and carried six British experiments designed to study the ionosphere and its relationship to solar radiation, including cosmic ray, solar emission and ionospheric experiments.
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Home / How Satellites Track Storms From Space. While commonplace today, satellite weather tracking was not possible before 1960. The first images of weather from space were taken by the TIROS I satellite on April 1, 1960. Today, different types of satellites, using a variety of tools, monitor and capture images of weather on Earth and in space.
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The United States chose government direction and created two new institutions, COMSAT and INTELSAT, to develop satellite communcations, an arrangement that lasted for more than two decades. This Telstar is a backup spacecraft to Telstar 1 and 2 (launched respectively in 1962 and 1963), transferred from the National Museum of American History to the Museum in 2006.
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The works frequently used a similar formula, combining cultural symbols, images of the satellite, and an overhead view of the Earth to reinforce pictorially the importance of space technologies in national or international life. This poster is of AUSSAT, the first communications satellite undertaken by Australia, launched in 1985.
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Military Reconnaissance. Military reconnaissance is an operation to obtain information relating to the activities, resources, or military forces of a foreign nation or armed group. It uses balloons, aviation, and space technology and has played an important role in our history. The technologies used to carry out military reconnaissance are varied.
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This is one of several replicas of the Vanguard 1 satellite in the NASM collection. Vanguard 1 was the second American satellite to orbit the earth on 17 March 1958. Coming six weeks after the successful launch of the Army's Explorer 1, and 5 months after the launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957, Vanguard symbolized America's failure to lead in ...
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During the Cold War, application satellites served national security or civilian interests. From the beginning of the Space Age, people recognized that Earth-orbiting satellites—able to see and communicate across vast distances—promised unique benefits. In the tense years of the Cold War, such spacecraft (known as applications satellites ...
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