The INTELSAT Global Satellite System

some of the key people who played a dominant role in the development of INTELSAT have kindly contributed to this book-published during the 20th anniversary year-thus preserving INTELSAT's past, describing its present, and predicting its future. This book is at once a history, a description of INTELSAT's current technological and operational features, an analysis of the key policy issues that face the Organization in an increasingly complex international telecommunications environment, and a long-range look ahead.

As editors, we have been fortunate to receive the support and cooperation of many people in making this project a reality. We are especially indebted to Arthur C. Clarke, the father of the communications satellite and, hence, the grandfather of INTELSAT, for granting permission to reprint one of his earliest technical articles on satellite communications. We also wish to thank the past and present Directors General of INTELSAT, Santiago Astrain and Richard R. Colino, without whose support this project could not have come to fruition, as well as Joseph V. Charyk, the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT), who played a key role in INTELSAT's development.

No volume, however long and exhaustive, can completely cover the technical, operational, and human detail encompassed by the INTELSAT global system. Nevertheless, we hope that as a reference book, as a "readable" history, and as an educational and technical data base this volume will be a worthy record of what INTELSAT has accomplished in the development of a global telecommunications network linking all mankind.