The Intelsat 5 generation: Electronics and advanced rocketry have kept pace with long-distance traffic demands to nurture new generation satellites

Communications satellite technology is paced as much by developments in rocketry as by advances in electronics, and nowhere is this fact as evident as in the Intelsat 5, the latest in a series of international communications satellites. When it came time to freeze the satellite design in 1974, a mix of 11/14-GHz and 4/6-GHz transponders, with provision for interconnections, was chosen. Improvements in the Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle made it possible to add the needed 57. kg to the in-orbit mass of the satellite.