Systems is responsible for the related space technology and launch vehicle programs, and our two staff organizations work closely together.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff develop and validate all military communications requirements including those which may be effectively satisfied by military satellite communications circuits. The Army is primarily responsible for development and procurement of ground terminals suitable for use by all military departments; the Navy is primarily responsible for development and procurement of shipboard terminals; and the Air Force is responsible for development and procurement of the satellites, establishment of any research or operational space segment, and development and procurement of airborne terminals suitable for use by all military departments. The field management organizations of the military departments are the Army Materiel Command, the Naval Electronic Systems Command, and the Air Force Systems Command.

In both the initial and the advanced defense communications satellite projects, the Defense Communications Agency is responsible for integrating the related efforts of the military departments and for operational direction thereof. The DCA is also responsible for controlling communications handled by the satellite system, including allocation of capacity in consonance with established priorities. The DCA is supported by the System Sciences Corporation.

We have found this arrangement to be quite effective. Each military department has a major responsibility in the overall development program and at the same time is able to manage its efforts in accordance with its own practices and procedures. The arrangement also simplifies funding and fiscal responsibility and management. The DCA, as the eventual operational system manager, is in a position to assure compatibility between various elements of the system and to maintain balance between the departmental schedules so that the various elements are available when needed.

Because the tactical satellite communications program is directed to lower echelon, or combat area, communications problems, it is not under the direction of the DCA. The tactical programs is under the management direction of a tri-service executive steering group having representatives from both the secretarial and the military staff level. Although the DCA is not actively participating in the tactical satellite communications program at this time, the military departments have the responsibility of keeping the Agency fully informed on the relevant activities of the tactical program.

In this way, the DCA is kept informed of the progress made in the tactical area and will benefit thereby from the technical data provided. Of course, should the R. & D. program culminate in the development of parameters for one or more tactical operational systems, it would be essential at that point to insure that the relationships between any tactical operational system and the defense communication system are considered in detail and, at such a point, DCA would begin to play a much more active role in the tactical satellite communications program.

Coordination and cooperation between the Department of Defense and the NASA continues to be excellent, with day-to-day coordination being carried out through direct contacts between members of

the Department and the NASA. The Technical Committee on Communications Satellites (TCCS), with DOD membership from OSD, DCA, and the military departments under the Unmanned Spacecraft Panel of the Aeronautics and Astronautics Coordinating Board continues to be the primary formal organization for the exchange of information.

(At the request of the subcommittee, the following membership list was furnished for the record :)

TECHINAL COMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES

Membership list as of July 20, 1966

National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

Headquarters:

Mr. Leonard Jaffe, member.

Mr. A. M. Greg Andrus, member and chairman.
Mr. Joseph R. Burke, alternate.
Mr. John J. Kelleher, alternate.
Goddard Space Flight Center:

Dr. Rudolf A. Stampfl, member.
Mr. Robert J. Darcey, member.
Mr. Albert L. Hedrich, alternate.

Mr. Wendell S. Sunderlin, alternate.

Mr. William O. Binkley, secretary.

DOD-Office Director of Defense Research and Engineering:

Mr. Thomas F. Rogers, member.

Mr. George Salton, alternate. Defense Communications Agency: Col. Ward T. Olsson, member. Mr. Clyde Herr, member.

Lt. Col. Ralph G. Backes, alternate.

Department of the Army:

Office, Chief of Research & Development:

Lt. Col. Boyde W. Allen, member.

Lt. Col. James J. Cobb, alternate.

United States Army Satellite Communications Agency:

Mr. George F. Senn, member.

Col. Eugene B. Datres, member.
Mr. Alan Gross, alternate.

Department of the Navy:

Office of the Chief of Naval Operations:

Lt.Cdr. W. R. Coffman, member.

Lt.Cdr. Albert W. Lumbert, alternate.

Electronic Systems Command:

Mr. Louis E. Johnson, member.

Mr. Joseph Awramik, alternate.

Naval Research Laboratory:

Mr. J. Plumer Leiphart, member and alternate.
Mr. Emerick Toth, alternate.

Department of the Air Force:

Headquarters USAF:

Lt. Col. Nicholas Polio, member.
Col. Arthur W. Hesse, alternate.

Lincoln Laboratory (MIT):

Mr. W. E. Morrow, Jr., member.

Mr. Donald C. MacLellan, alternate.

Space Systems Division-AFSC:

Col. Marion B. Gibson, member.

Maj. William L. Strand, alternate.

Rome Air Development Center/Air Force Avionics Laboratory:

Mr. John S. Flatz (AFAL), member.

Mr. James McKee (RADC), member.

Mr. Leo Morgan (AFAL), alternate.
Mr. Gordon Negus, alternate.

Mr. ROGERS. For example, the July meeting of the TCCS took place at Cape Kennedy and included inspection of the IDCSP satellites and the Titan III-C, complete description of the gravity gradient satellite, and a review of the performance in orbit of the IDCSP satellites based on data received up to the time of the meeting. The August meeting will take place at the Hughes Aircraft Co. and will include a major presentation on the NASA's ATS-B spacecraft. As you can appreciate, these periodic meetings not only serve to keep the committee members current, but they also form the basis for further discussion and coordination between meetings.

Active interest in the part of our allies in our defense satellite communications activities continues to grow. Subsequent to Dr. Foster's recent testimony before your committee, a memorandum of understanding was signed by the Secretary of Defense and the Minister of Defence of the United Kingdom, delineating the latter's participation in the R. & D. phase of our initial system-as was noted in the published record of your hearings. The United Kingdom has procured and is installing its own terminals for R. & D. testing.

Representatives of the United States have discussed our satellite communications R. & D. activities with certain NATO organizations. In June, for example, Ambassador Cleveland discussed the subject in the North Atlantic Council. Initial reaction indicates a considerable interest on the part of several of the NATO countries in the potential of satellite communications for improving NATO communications.

Mr. Chairman, this has been a brief résumé of our research and development activities related to military satellite communications. Again, I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to bring you up to date on this important element of military communications.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. It is a very concise and clear and informational presentation.

Mr. Horton, do you have any questions at this time?

TARGET DATES FOR IDCSP

Mr. HORTON. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

I agree that this is a very comprehensive report, and I think it will take a lot of time to study to really determine all the questions that might be asked. But I would like to go back to where we were in the 1st session of the 88th Congress.

At that point, the Department of Defense proposed to put up an operational communications satellite system which, as you recall, was a so-called random orbiting system. During the course of the 89th Congress, we conducted hearings with regard to the sharing of the Comsat program by the Department of Defense. In October, I think, of 1964, it was indicated that the Department of Defense would go ahead on its own. I understood that the Defense Department would put up an operational system similar to the one that had been discussed. I also recall that at those hearings, there was testimony that October of 1964 was the target date for an operational system by the Department of Defense.

What is the status of that operational system right now-August 1966?

Mr. ROGERS. In almost every particular, except the altitude of the orbit, our plans remain as they were at that time, Mr. Horton; that is to put a relatively large number of fairly simple satellites, but entirely useful ones, into a high-altitude orbit, the number being, in our judg ment, that number required to give us very, very good testing of the satellites with the surface terminals and to give us an early operational ability and also to give us something well worthwhile having in event of any national emergency requiring these satellite circuits.

The goal for having this operational capability was approximately this year, the calendar year 1966.

Mr. HORTON. Excuse me. When was that goal established? Mr. ROGERS. This goal was established, I think, probably in the year 1964. At that time, we were balancing, and the committee heard a very great deal of testimony to this effect, we were balancing the questions of rockets and spacecraft and altitude; and about that time, if my memory serves me correctly, we believed that we should have, and would have, a useful initial operational capability in this calendar year.

Now, the launch that took place on June 16 of this year, the successful launch that placed seven of these satellites into the high altitude is the first launch of a series of two or three that will give us the space segment of this initial system.

We have now some six terminals deployed, and we expect by the end of this year to have perhaps twice that number deployed. And then, early next year, we will have a much larger number, including shipboard terminals; it's possible that we may, in fact, even have the first shipboard terminal by the end of this calendar year.

Now, as to how useful this system is or will be depends upon one overriding factor and some secondary ones. The overriding factor, of course, is the behavior of the booster and the behavior of the satellites in orbit. In this regard, we are very encouraged by this first launch.

The rocket performed essentially perfectly and the satellites in all instances to date have performed in Air Force terms "nominally," that is, what they are doing there is exactly what they did on the ground.

With the second launch, if it be successful, and I am now informed it is scheduled for, I believe, the 24th or 25th of this month, if that launch be successful and the satellites continue to behave as previously, we should have 15 working satellites in orbit.

By this fall, we would expect that the small initial difficulties with the surface terminals will have been worked out by the Army and if all goes well, certainly, we will have a perfectly adequate R. & D. test system at that point in time. We will have the beginnings of a very useful-although quite limited-initial operating capability and we will certainly be able to handle emergency communications with those satellites and ground terminals.

Mr. HORTON. Then there has already been some slippage on your 1966 target date for an operational military system.

Mr. ROGERS. Well, where the expenses of space systems, Mr. Horton, are so large, and their risk because of the state of technology also large, it is difficult to say R. & D. is finished and operations have

begun. In fact, our use of the NASA Syncom is already a limited operational ability, and we will be able, I am sure, to pass some operational traffic this calendar year with those 15 satellites and the deployed terminals.

Mr. HORTON. Well, now, let me ask you the question this way, because I still haven't gotten the answer.

How long do you feel that this R. & D. is going to continue? This has been going on now for 3 or 4 years.

Mr. ROGERS. Well, the R. & D. that has gone on to this point has been primarily the R. & D. associated with the development of the booster and the satellites and the beginnings of operational R. & D. tests with the Syncom satellites. Our R. & D. activities now are to a very large extent, certainly well underway; they are underway now, with the satellites in orbit.

We are now testing actual circuits, you see. We are testing the way messages are getting through the first terminals, testing the first circuits. I think it is fair to say that the bulk of these initial tests would be finished within a relatively short time after the second successful launch, that is, this calendar year.

Now

Mr. HORTON. Is there any urgency to have an operational military system?

Mr. ROGERS. Oh, yes. We are now moving as rapidly in these launchings as the boosters are judged to be ready to be launched.

Mr. HORTON. Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that there shouldn't be continuing R. & D. and that you shouldn't be taking a look at the rapidly developing communications satellite field. Mr. ROGERS. I understand.

Mr. HORTON. But I am concerned that you still have not put up an operational military system, even though back in 1964 there was talk about one that could be up and operational in 1965.

Mr. ROGERS. Well, this has been a difficult course for all of us. I will certainly stipulate that. But in August, 2 years ago, we specified in very careful detail what we were going to do so far as bringing this operational system into being and we haven't deviated in any important respect from those plans or those schedules from that time

on.

Mr. HORTON. I think the Department of Defense will certainly acknowledge the fact that much of the slippage between 1963 and 1964 was a result of the negotiations between DOD and the Communications. Satellite Corp. for the private system. Is this not correct?

Mr. ROGERS. Well, during that time, Mr. Horton-well, let me start again. Of course, this has been a matter of considerable discussion between the people in the Department of Defense and this committee and others. There are a number of very important intangibles here not of R. & D. nature to which I cannot speak directly.

I can say that during the period of those studies, and they were difficult, complex, and detailed ones, we did continue to press ahead with the technology of the statellite, and of the surface terminals which did permit us, once the decision had been made by the President that summer, to go ahead, did permit us to pick up a great deal of speed and to launch so quickly thereafter, some 20 months after the contract was let by the Air Force.