The first two-way radio voice transmission via artificial satellite was accomplished.
Meantime, other firms were also busily utilizing the satellite as a relay. Participating in the communications experiments officially, as contractors to NASA in Project Echo, were Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Bell Telephone Laboratories. On August 12, these two companies succeeded in relaying a pre-recorded tape from a JPL transmitting station in Goldstone, California, to a Bell receiving station in Holmdel, New Jersey. Voluntary participants, in addition to Collins, included General Electric, ITT, Crosley Division of the AVCO Corporation, and the Development Engineering Corporation. All these firms will provide NASA full reports on the data they were able to gather.
Since the Echo launch, Collins research teams have been gathering data during every moment when it is possible to contact Echo in its passes. The signals generated between Cedar Rapids and Richardson are faithfully recorded on Ampex tapes. Then, minute studies are made of each transmission. Constants are checked and variables determined, and each piece of data carefully plotted.
Pending release of the final report - the conclusions of which will be made available both to NASA and to the scientific community in general - it appears that these recorded data will give answers not only to those questions anticipated before the project had begun, but also to several which have arisen out of it.
During the periods when Echo is visible in the night skies, a discernible “scintillating” effect has begun. This is accredited in part to the satellite's loss of its original perfect sphericity. Is there a correlation between the scintillation and the radio signal?
As the Echo balloon rotates during orbit, the tiny transmitters at each pole constantly shift position. Will polarized transmitters of this nature create permanent tracking difficulties, and shall they be eliminated from future satellites?
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