Space: Another Echo

A glittering new star appeared in the heavens last week, one that will be seen by more people than any other man-made object in history. It is the tissue-thin balloon satellite, Echo II, as tall as a 13-story building.

At its birth, it was tucked inside a small canister perched atop a Thor-Agena B rocket booster. Launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, Echo II rocketed into a polar orbit 642 to 816 miles above the earth. As it sped toward Madagascar about an hour after launch, the canister popped open, releasing the sturdy skin of the balloon, composed of two layers of aluminum foil laminated to a sheet of plastic. The warm rays of the sun began to vaporize chemicals inside the satellite, expanding it to its full 135-ft. diameter.

Echo II is expected to stay up for three years, will be clearly visible above the horizon at sunset and sunrise. A passive communications satellite that will bounce radio signals off its taut surface, Echo II also reflects the first practical attempt at U.S.-Soviet space cooperation. By agreement with Moscow, facsimile picture, voice and code signals will be transmitted soon by means of huge antennas at observatories in Russia and England.