posted 11-01-2015 05:57 AM               

Space Cover 341: Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE)

This week's space cover commemorates the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), which transmitted instructional television programs to thousands of isolated villages throughout India. After being used during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) in 1975 as a communications relay, the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS-6) was used to facilitate the SITE experiment.

The cover shown is a first day cover India Scott #687 commemorating SITE. The cover was autographed by NASA/SITE Program Manager, Wasyl Lew and Project Manager, John Miller.

posted 11-01-2015 07:03 AM               

ATS-6 was used to test a variety of new space communications concepts requiring the use of a geosynchronous orbit spacecraft. These include broadcast of health and education television programs to small, low cost ground receiving units in remote regions; aeronautical and maritime communications, position-location and traffic control techniques and spacecraft tracking and data relay.

Concepts developed during this testing eventually led to the Tracking Data Relay Satellites (TDRSS) of the 1980s.