May 3 2003
From The Space Library
The National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, inducted 17 aviation and aerospace inventors, among them Harold A. Rosen, recognized for his pioneering work in developing the world's first 24-hour commercial communications satellite and for his subsequent contributions to satellite communications. Rosen had led the Boeing Satellite Systems team that had begun developing the geostationary Syncom in 1959. The team had planned for Syncom to communicate directly and continuously with any ground station in its line of sight, in contrast to the communications satellites in use at the time, which required expensive tracking computers. The first Syncom had failed to launch successfully, but Syncom 2 had reached its synchronous orbit on 26 July 1963. Later that year, Syncom 2 had relayed by satellite the first live two-way call between heads of state ~ a phone call between President John F. Kennedy in Washington, DC, and Nigerian Prime Minister Abubaker Balewa in Africa. Syncom 3 had brought live coverage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics to U.S. viewers. The satellites had remained active through 1966, surpassing their one-year design life. David L. Ryan, Vice President and General Manager of Boeing Satellite Systems, remarked that contemporary satellites that deliver video, voice, and data communications are all descendants of Syncom, and “when Harold Rosen and his colleagues launched Syncom, they launched a revolution and changed the world.(The Boeing Company, “Boeing Satellite Pioneer Harold Rosen Inducted to National Inventors Hall of Fame,” news release, 1 May 2003, http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2003/q2/nr_030501n.html (accessed 21 November 2008).
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