Vice president and group executive, Aerospace Group, Hughes Aircraft Co., 1961present. Vice president and director of Aerospace Engineering Division, 1959-61. Lecturer in aeronautics and chief, wind tunnel section, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Research consultant in aerodynamics, California Institute of Technology, 1941-45. Technical consultant to U.S. Army Ordnance, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., 1945-present. Technical consultant, wind tunnel design, Pittsburgh Des Moines Steel Co., 1943-45. Member, executive committee of Defense Science Board, January, 1962. Consultant, Operations Evaluation Group, Chief of Naval Operations, 1960present. Consultant, President's Science Advisory Committee, 1960-present. Chairman, NASA Research Advisory Committee on Control, Guidance, and Navigation, 1959-present. Member, Scientific Advisory Committee, Ballistic Research Laboratories, U.S. Army Ordnance, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., 1958-present. Chairman, Steering Group, Mutual Weapons Development Program, Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, 1956–61. Member, Steering Group, Advisory Panel on Aeronautics, Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, 1956–61. Member, Subcommittee on Automatic Stabilization and Control, NASA, 1956-59. Member, Committee on Aerodynamics, NACA, 1953–55. Member, Guided Missile Committee, Research and Development Board, 1952–54. Member, U.S. Military Intelligence Mission, September-October 1947. Member, U.S. Military Technical Mission, June-July 1945. Past Chairman NACA Subcommittee on High Speed Aerodynamics. Author of seven technical papers on high speed aerodynamics. Coauthor of the book "Introduction to Aerodynamics of a Compressible Fluid." Coauthor of the book "Guided Missile Engineering." Member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi. Member of American Rocket Society. Recipient of Institute of Aeronautical Sciences Lawrence Sperry Award, 1949. Fellow of Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, 1957. STATEMENT OF ALLEN E. PUCKETT, VICE PRESIDENT, HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO., CULVER CITY, CALIF.; ACCOMPANIED BY C. GORDON MURPHY, PROGRAM MANAGER, PROJECT SYNCOM Senator KEFAUVER. Dr. Puckett, what is your present position with the Hughes Aircraft Co.? Mr. PUCKETT. Mr. Chairman, I am vice president and head of our aerospace group. Senator KEFAUVER. You are accompanied by Mr. Gordon Murphy? Mr. PUCKETT. That is right. Senator KEFAUVER. What is your position, Mr. Murphy? Mr. MURPHY. I am the program manager of Project Syncom, Mr. Chairman. Senator KEFAUVER. We have Dr. Puckett's background. Will you tell us a little bit about yours, Mr. Murphy, how long you have been in the space and satellite business, and so on? Mr. MURPHY. We have been working in the space business at Hughes now for a little over 3 years. In addition to the Syncom program, we are also the contractor to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Surveyor Spacecraft program, which we hope will make the first successful soft landing of instruments on the moon. on a number of other smaller programs as well. We are working Senator KEFAUVER. Hughes Aircraft Co. is located in Culver City, Calif.? Mr. PUCKETT. That is correct. Senator KEFAUVER. How large a company is it, Dr. Puckett? Mr. PUCKETT. We have approximately 28,000 employees and our total annual business volume for the entire company is over $400 million a year. Senator KEFAUVER. Dr. Puckett, are you going to be the spokesman here today? Mr. PUCKETT. That is the plan. Senator KEFAUVER. Tell us the genesis of the Syncom program, what you have done, how far along you have gotten, and what the possibilities are. Mr. PUCKETT. Right. Mr. Chairman, the Syncom program grew out of some studies that we began at Hughes in 1959, with the objective of trying to find the simplest and lightest possible payload for use as an active communication satellite repeater. Our studies led us to the conclusion that the best solution to this problem would be a satellite in a synchronous orbit and that, by using some fairly novel techniques in the attitude control orientation system and some fairly novel techniques in the electronics, we could, in fact, design a package that would be light enough to be put into a synchronous orbit with boosters then existing. Senator KEFAUVER. Now existing? Mr. PUCKETT. Actually then existing, and, of course, now existing. So we continued these studies at Hughes as a part of our internal company program for several years, during which time we made laboratory prototypes of electronic hardware to check out these aspects of it, various elements of the structure and of our control system, and some dynamic models of the control system. We got enough confirmation from this work to encourage us to approach the NASA with some plans for an experimental demonstration system, which resulted in the program we now call Syncom I. This is a program on which we, under contract to NASA, are constructing a small synchronous satellite that can be put in orbit by the Thor-Delta vehicle. The present program calls for putting this in orbit in about the first month of 1963. We do have some slides here that I think will help to illustrate some of the features of this Syncom I, if it is agreeable to the group. We would like to go through these rather quickly here. Some of the technical aspects of the system have a bearing on our notions regarding how a commercial system might be put together. For that reason, we thought you would like to see some of them. Senator KEFAUVER. Fine. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. PUCKETT. This first slide is a representation of the Syncom I satellite in orbit. This is the earth and the drawing is intended to indicate the fact that the plane of the orbit is inclined at an angle of about 35° to the earth's equator. As you saw in the little movie a short time ago, this would cause the satellite to appear to an observer on the earth to wander north and south each day in a sort of figure 8 pattern. The pancake-shaped affair here is an indication of the antenna pattern. The antenna pattern is equivalent to the beam of a searchlight in which the light is focused; in this case, radio energy is focused in the pancake shape. In this next slide, we have tried to illustrate some of the main features of the Syncom I satellite. The payload you see does weigh about 73 pounds, and, as I mentioned, can be put into orbit by a Thor-Delta. The rocket nozzle in the center is the last stage of the entire booster system which gives this satellite the velocity necessary to establish a proper orbit at 23,000 miles. This sketch also shows two gas jets, one here and one here [indicating] operating from a cold gas supply, which constitute the attitude orientation and stabilization system. This is a very simple and straightforward scheme which has permitted us to save a great deal of weight in the satellite. The satellite spins about this axis. The outside circumference is covered with solar cells which supply the energy source. The spike coming out of the top is the coaxial slotted array antenna, which generates the antenna pattern we saw in the last slide. The electronics are packaged in various boxes, which are a little hard to see here. The electronic system, of course, is made completely from solid state components. By that we mean only transistors and semiconductor diodes. The only exception is the final power output tube. This is a new kind of electronic tube, a traveling wave tube, which we have developed in our own laboratories and which is now operative. This slide shows a few of the satellite's physical characteristics. This 73 pounds is the initial orbital weight of the satellite. AMR is the missile range, and the power is 2.5 watts. The electronic characteristics of the satellite are such that it can relay an information bandwidth of 500 kilocycles. It operates with a received frequency of roughly 8 kilomegacycles-that is 8,000 megacycles from the earth to the satellite and at transmitted frequency of roughly 2,000 megacycles from the satellite back to earth. The program, as I have mentioned, is a joint NASA-Hughes program in which we are carrying on the development under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA. An interesting feature is that by agreement between NASA and the Department of Defense, we plan to use as the experimental ground stations certain ground equipment which is being developed in connection with the Advent program. This has permitted some economies in the program in that it was not necessary for special ground equipment to be developed for Syncom and has made an interesting cooperative arrangement here between NASA and the Department of Defense. In this slide, we have tried to symbolize the essential objectives of the Syncom I program in this first demonstration satellite. The satellite as we shall use it with the particular ground equipment, the Advent ground stations that are planned, will provide one two-way voice channel; that is, telephony channel. The orbit is inclined, as I |