May 30 1979
From The Space Library
INTELSAT announced a first step toward intersatellite communications links: an award of a $170,000 contract to Hughes Aircraft Company for design and fabrication of a traveling-wave tube, a vital component of an intersatellite link. Direct transmission via satellite was now possible only between points within one satellite's coverage area (about one-third of Earth's surface); messages for locations outside that area had to use land-based links or ground relay to a second satellite. The planned communications links could transmit directly from one satellite to another, saving one down and one up transmission, freeing that link for other use, and making the whole system more efficient and economical by making more stations available to direct access. (INTELSAT Release 79-10-1)
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