Westar 1 was America's first domestic and commercially launched

geostationary A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit in altitude ...

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...

, launched by

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

(WU) and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

on April 13, 1974. It was built by

Hughes Hughes may refer to: People * Hughes (surname) * Hughes (given name) Places Antarctica * Hughes Range (Antarctica), Ross Dependency * Mount Hughes, Oates Land * Hughes Basin, Oates Land * Hughes Bay, Graham Land * Hughes Bluff, Victoria La ...

for Western Union, using the

HS-333 In 1970, Hughes Aircraft Company (HAC) Space and Communications Group offered the first standardized satellite: the HS 333 design. A spinning satellite, it was based on previous one-design satellites like Intelsat I. HAC built eight of these 300 ...

platform of spin-stabilized satellites. It operated until 1983.

Mission

Westar 1 was the first of five

Westar Westar was a fleet of geosynchronous communications satellites operating in the C band which were launched by Western Union from 1974 to 1984. There were seven Westar satellites in all, with five of them launched and operating under the Westar ...

satellites launched by Western Union from 1974 to 1982. Westar 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta 2914 launch vehicle from Complex 17 on April 13, 1974. The launch vehicle delivered the satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. After transiting to a near geosynchronous apogee, the satellite employed an apogee kick motor to raise the perigee of the orbit and reduce inclination to near-geostationary. Westars 1, 2, and 3 were 12-

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend word, blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a T ...

satellites while Westar 4 and Westar 5 were launched with 24 transponders. Western Union built a teleport in

Cedar Hill, Texas Cedar Hill is a city in Dallas and Ellis counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is located approximately southwest of downtown Dallas and is situated along the eastern shore of Joe Pool Lake and Cedar Hill State Park. Per the 2020 United States ...

, to

uplink In a telecommunications network, a link is a communication channel that connects two or more devices for the purpose of data transmission. The link may be a dedicated physical link or a virtual circuit that uses one or more physical links or shar ...

content to the Westar satellites (it was interconnected to WU's existing terrestrial microwave network at the time), and another teleport that, in addition to uplink services, would become the main TT&C (Telemetry, Tracking & Control) center for the satellite (and for all of the Westar fleet later on), in

Glenwood, New Jersey Glenwood is an unincorporated area located within Vernon Township, in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States.Locality Se ...

. A sixth satellite, Westar 6, was launched in 1984 but failed to reach orbit and was retrieved by the

STS-51-A STS-51-A (formerly STS-19) was the 14th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the second flight of Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center on November 8, 1984, and landed just under eight days later on ...

Space Shuttle mission later that year. It was later refurbished and relaunched in orbit of Asia as

AsiaSat 1 AsiaSat 1 was a Hong Kong communications satellite, which was owned, and was operated, by the Hong Kong based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company. It was positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 100.5° East. It spent its oper ...

in 1990. Westar 1 was used by

for its own internal communications, such as for sending

telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

s and

mailgram A mailgram is a type of telegraphic message which is delivered to the recipient by the post office. Mailgrams are received at a mailgram center by telephone, teletypewriter service or computer. Each message is placed in a special envelope and disp ...

s to Western Union bureaus and

U.S. post office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the Federal government of the Uni ...

s respectively. It also was utilized by outside customers such as

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

and the

Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...

, using it for sending television and radio programming via satellite to their local affiliate stations throughout the 1970s and '80s. It was also employed to enable communications with offshore oil platforms. Westar 1 was also used for a short time by

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

for its nationwide debut using satellite distribution to cable companies in 1975 (HBO later moved to RCA's competing satellite,

Satcom 1 Satcom, a portmanteau of satellite communications, was a brand of artificial geo-stationary communications satellites originally developed and operated by RCA American Communications ( RCA Americom) that facilitated wide-area telecommunica ...

, in February 1976). Westar 1 was retired from service in April 1983. The 15-meter dishes used to communicate with it at the Cedar Hill site have been decommissioned, but they can still be visited today by contacting Westar Satellite Services. The former main TT&C & uplink site for Westar in Glenwood, is now (as of 2015) the satellite uplink facility for

SiriusXM Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius S ...

Radio.

References

Spacecraft launched in 1974 Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Western Union {{US-spacecraft-stub

Mission

See also

References