Intelsat 1, aka “Early Bird”
Intelsat 1 was the first commercial communications satellite sent to geosynchronous orbit, reaching this destination on April 6, 1965. Nicknamed “Early Bird,” it was built by the Hughes Spacecraft Company (now Boeing Satellite Systems) for the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) global telecommunications company. It’s historically significant in that it was the “first to provide direct and nearly instantaneous communications contact between Europe and North America,” as NASA explains. The 76-pound Early Bird worked for 18 months but was brought back online during the Apollo 11 mission. It’s no longer working, but it’s still up there, some 22,300 miles (35,890 km) above the equator.
