COMMUNICATIONS MOON RELAY I
Satellite Communications Glossary
Satellite Communications — Communications Moon Relay I
Information on Communications Moon Relay (CMR)
Interestingly, in a very pedantic sense, not only is the Moon the Earth’s first satellite, it was also used in the early 1950s by the US Navy as the first communications satellite to transmit teletypewriter messages from Washington DC to the west coast of the USA. The Communications Moon Relay (CMR) was then established between 1960 and 1962 to provide reliable long-distance satellite communications between Washington DC and Hawaii. Although limited by the availability of a line-of-sight path from the two stations to the Moon, the Communications Moon Relay was used operationally to provide multi-channel radio teletype, two-way voice and facsimile circuits as an alternate route for HF circuits during periods of heavy ionospheric disturbance. The Communications Moon Relay used ultra-high frequencies (UHF) (435-445 MHz) and had a bandwidth of 16 kHz. Ground stations employed 100-kW transmitters and 25-m steerable high-gain antennas.
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