50 years of civilian satellite communications: from imagination to reality

The article discusses the history and development of satellite communications. The concept of satellite communications is normally accredited to an Englishman, A. C. Clarke, because of a famous paper published in the British 'Wireless World'. Arthur C. Clarke was not the only one thinking about communications satellites. In 1946, the Army Air Force's Project Rand, a division of Douglas Aircraft, pointed out in a classified study the potential commercial use of synchronous communications satellites. Unfortunately, this report remained secret for so long that it had little impact. The early days of satellite communications comprised many experiments and fact finding missions which led to the active transponder based satellites in common use today. Some basic details of the background of these early days are given.