It carried no active communication components, no relays.
Just two FM transmitters for telemetry purposes, powered by nickel-cadmium batteries charged by solar cells.
The satellite achieved its purpose by passively reflecting any radio signal directed towards its large shiny surface.
For eight years it relayed radio and television signals, and made intercontinental telephone calls possible.
The best part wasany individual with the right equipment could use the satellite at no cost.
All that was left for O’Sullivan’s inflatable balloon was a tiny space the size of a doughnut.
Before long, the small experimental program had ballooned into a full fledged satellite program called Project Echo.
The size of the balloon satellite, informally called satelloon, also increased exponentially into a hundred foot.
A technician inspects the container for Echo 1.
On the right is the container partially separated to show the tightly packed satellite inside.
Kilgore remembers that a “remarkable improvement in folding resulted.”
Success still eluded the team.
The first launch of Echo on October 28, 1959, was a disaster.
When the balloon was tested on ground, it needed 18 tons of air to inflate it completely.
But in orbit, just a few pounds of gas was enough to keep it inflated.
Once in orbit, the balloon was inflated using an evaporating powder.
Minutes later, Echo 1 relayed the first radio message from President Eisenhower:
This is President Eisenhower speaking.
To communicate with the Echo satelloon, Bell Labs built a 50-foot long horn-shaped antenna in Holmdel.
Later, in 1964, using this same antenna, Drs.
They were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1978.
The Holmdel Horn Antenna in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, United States.
Photo:Jeff Keyzer/Flickr
In 1964, Echo 2 was launched.
Because it was conspicuously larger, Echo 2 was visible to the unaided eye over all of the Earth.
Echo 1 re-entered the atmosphere and burned up in 1968.
Echo 2 followed the next year.
NASA launched another satelloon, called PAGEOS, in 1964.
Test inflation of a PAGEOS satellite in a blimp hangar at Weeksville, North Carolina.
The success of the Echo program encouraged private sector initiatives in this field.
Eventually, balloon satellites fell out of favor to make way for satellites that actively transmitted signals.
Satelloons,https://greg.org/archive/2007/10/07/the-satelloons-of-project-echo-must-find-satelloons.html
