Courier 1B
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Organization | United States Air Force |
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| Major Contractors | Western Development Laboratories |
| Mission Type | Communications satellite |
| Satellite of | Earth |
| Launch | Thor-DM21 Able-Star; 4 October 1960 |
| Mission Duration | 17 days |
| Mass | 230 kg |
| Webpage | N/A |
| Orbital elements | |
| Semimajor Axis | LEO, perigee=967 km, apogee=1214 km |
| Eccentricity | N/A |
| Inclination | 28.3° |
| Orbital Period | 107.1 min. |
| Right ascension of the ascending node |
N/A |
| Argument of perigee | N/A |
| Instruments | |
| Active Repeater | N/A |
Launched 4 October 1960, Courier 1B was the world’s first active repeater satellite. Courier was built by the Palo Alto, California–based Western Development Labs (WDL) division of Philco, previously known as Army Fort Monmouth Laboratories and now the Space Systems/Loral division of Loral Space & Communications.
Proposed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in September 1958, this satellite was a flown in 1960. The first satellite in the series, Courier 1A, blew up in the rocket 2.5 minutes after take off. This satellite was a follow-on to the Project SCORE launched in that 1958. It used approximately 19,000 solar cells and was also the first satellite to use Nickel Cadmium storage batteries. It had an effective message transmission rate of 55,000 bit/s. After completing its first orbit, a message from President Eisenhower to the United Nations was transmitted from Fort Monmouth and relayed to a ground station in Puerto Rico.
After 228 orbits in 17 days, the payload refused to respond to commands from the ground. It is believed that the clock-based access codes got out of synchronization, therefore the satellite would not respond to what it interpreted as unauthorized commands.
