Historia De Las Comunicaciones

John Logsdon, the long time director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, when he talks about the history of space, often starts by saying: “The policy people and not the engineers always win.” The meaning of his statement is that the engineers can design wonderful technology, but it is the politicians and the governmental officials who ultimately decide how, when, where, and why it is actually used. This, in many ways, is certainly the case with regard to the early development and use of satellite communications technology for global communications. The evolution of satellite communications technology came rather quickly in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but international politics related to the Cold War shaped how this technology was deployed and how quickly it was used. U.S. efforts to recover from the global impact of the Sputnik launch by the Soviet Union placed great emphasis on developing all forms of space technologies. Thus, the U.S. government placed great political importance on the creation of a global satellite system with a U.S. launch vehicle and spacecraft technology leading this new venture.

This is the early story of how satellite communications began, and how these amazing devices revolutionized global communications and helped to realize the electronic global village we live in today. The first applications of communications satellite began with the relay of international telecommunications services (i.e., telephone, telex, and television) — essentially as an extension of terrestrial national networks. Over time the technology and the applications matured. This led ultimately to the creation of national satellite systems for domestic television, radio, and telecommunications, the creation of maritime satellite systems to provide services to ships at sea, the offering of aeronautical mobile satellite services to aircraft, land mobile satellite services to supplement cell phones, and direct broadcast satellite systems to beam television and radio to individual subscribers. In some ways evolving satellite technology competed with terrestrial submarine cable, and in some ways these systems worked in tandem. In later decades, other commercial satellite applications also emerged. These now include remote sensing, Earth observation, space navigation, and meteorological services. The complete story is too complex to relate in a single article. The focus here, therefore, is on the early years and the creation of the Communications Satellite Corporation in the United States and the creation of the International Satellite Communications Consortium (Intelsat) from which other commercial satellite systems have evolved. To complete the story, however, some of the more important evolutionary steps that have now occurred within the satellite industry to develop maritime and mobile satellites and broadcast satellites, and to use satellite for domestic as well as international purposes are noted.

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