July 12, 1962: The Day Information Went Global

Hey, how many of you out there remember when TelStar went up? All of a sudden we were using space faring satellites for communication not across the state but AROUND THE WORLD!!! Plus if you were lucky you could see it in the early evening hours climbing brilliantly into the heavens! This miricle of space age technology took place July 12, 1962. From the article:

• launched by NASA on July 10, 1962, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and was the first privately sponsored space-faring mission. Two days later, it relayed the world's first transatlantic television signal, from Andover Earth Station, Maine.

Of course living in Maine gave it special meaning.  (Matter of fact, the last time I went up there in the early 90s, a great deal of the facility was still there.  Along with some of the (ahem "lesser known") other buildings associated with the Earth Station. 

Telstar was the first satellite to carry a commercial payload to demonstrate the 

demonstrated the feasibility of transmitting information by satellite.  

Many people even today thought Telstar was operational for several years when in fact it was only operational for  a few months.  During that period it relayed television signals of a brief duration as well as pictures and audio.

Read the complete NASA article here