Hughes Aircraft Remembered (April 2005 issue of SatMagazine.com)

Bruce Elbert, President, Application Technology Strategy, Inc.

The successful Martin Scorsese film, The Aviator, documents much of the life, accomplishments, and foibles of Howard Hughes. Living in the Los Angeles area, the only evidence of Howard Hughes we see today are streets and office parks that carry his name. Howard’s real contribution is hidden within the success of some of America’s greatest industries – aviation, movie making, and satellite communications. Starting with the base of the oil-bit manufacturing company started by his father, Howard produced and directed several successful films, owned two airlines and, most importantly for satellites, got heavily involved with aircraft design and manufacture. There’s a scene in The Aviator where Howard tells his business manager, Noah Dietrich, to incorporate Hughes Aircraft Company so that he could continue to build his experimental racing airplanes. That company, which recently passed into history, employed more than one hundred thousand engineers and scientists that developed the first laser, built radar systems that could locate the source of incoming mortar fire, manufactured ground-to-air and air-to-air missiles, and supplied tactical radios that could communicate under extremely difficult conditions. Thus, Hughes Aircraft provided the base to pursue Howard’s vision of leadership in aerospace and defense technology.

The history Hughes Aircraft’s contributions to satellite communications are marked by major technological and business innovations, recognized by the Society of Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) in its Hall of Fame. Building on Howard Hughes’ innovations in high performance aircraft and the electronic systems needed in complex defense systems, a team of top technologists led by Dr. Harold A. Rosen (inducted in 1987 into the first SSPI Hall of Fame) produced the first working GEO satellite, Syncom. While the Hughes Flying Boat was the biggest aircraft that ever flew, Syncom was one of the smallest spacecraft ever launched successfully. Subsequently, COMSAT selected Dr. Rosen’s team at Hughes to build Early Bird, which was launched 40 years ago, in 1965.

During the ensuing years, Hughes Aircraft designed and built a series of spacecraft that performed the first soft-landing on the moon (Surveyor), demonstrated tactical communications to compact terminals (Tacsat), and established the global INTELSAT system covering the three ocean regions (Intelsat IV). At the time I joined Hughes in 1972, Hughes innovated in the creation of the first truly domestic satellite, Anik A, which was launched successfully my very first day on the job. I recall looking over the shoulder of Paul Sengstock, a spacecraft engineer who was reviewing live telemetry coming in from the satellite just after apogee injection. Paul indicated that the telemetry receiver had two different detector circuits – one designed by Dr. Rosen and the other by chief engineer Meradeth Eick. This is the kind of personal dedication and involvement that was a Hughes hallmark.

Hughes Aircraft gave us all plenty of opportunity to contribute on many levels. I was asked to head up the communications engineering of the Palapa A system for Indonesia. This occupied the better part of the 1970s (including 1975, the year of Mr. Hughes’ passing), and it was my pleasure to be on site for the launch, test and integration of an entire satellite communications system. Of course, not all of us at Hughes Aircraft were occupied with Palapa A – at the same time, Steve Dorfman and Eddy Hartenstein were busy with Pioneer Venus, which placed a satellite into the Venus orbit and injected probes into the Venusian atmosphere. Designed and built by Steve’s very dedicated team, these craft were supposed to burn up during entry but survived to hit the surface – the result of Hughes overdesign.

Toward the end of the 1970s, the head of the Space and Communications Group, Dr. Albert D. (Bud) Wheelon, had established a new direction for Hughes – that of owning and operating satellites as well as designing and integrating the systems that employ them. We had already shown that we could make satellite communications work effectively, but Dr. Wheelon had the vision that we could excel at creating a services business as well. This is always a dicey proposition as you would be seen as competing with your own customers. Bud selected Clay T. (Tom) Whitehead (inducted this year into the SSPI Hall of Fame), a non-Hughes executive, to head the fledgling satellite services company, Hughes Communications, Inc. (HCI). Some may remember Tom for his accomplishments as head of the Office of Telecommunications Policy under President Richard Nixon, wherein the geostationary orbit was opened up to competition. As president of HCI, Tom created a new kind of Hughes company wherein business and marketing dominated. His strategy to create a Galaxy System rather than simply one star was brilliant in its simplicity and effective in its market power.

Joining Tom Whitehead were Steve Dorfman, former program manager of Pioneer Venus who eventually succeeded Tom as HCI president, and Eddy Hartenstein, the focal point of Galaxy cable services. It was my pleasure to work for Steve and Eddy during the development and growth of Galaxy to become the leader in cable TV. The HCI organization worked hard to establish Hughes as one of the two top satellite operators in terms of customers (and number one in profitability).

Steve moved on to transform the satellite manufacturing group into Hughes Space and Communications Company (HSC), streamlining operations and basing the company’s future on a new class of high-powered satellites. These would later form the base of DIRECTV, another Hughes startup that was put under the able stewardship of Eddy Hartenstein. DIRECTV would eclipse HSC and HCI to become a multi-billion dollar business with the first digital multi-channel television service. Steve and Eddy were also inducted into the SSPI Hall of Fame this year.

Part of the Hughes legacy is in terms of advanced engineering education, pioneered through the Hughes Fellowship program. Institutions like UCLA and Cal Tech partnered with Hughes in graduate programs to the PhD level that produced some of America’s most notable researchers and technologists. At the more practical level, the Hughes Advanced Technology Education Program (ATEP) conducted in-house technical courses in areas of immediate relevance to the technical staff.

Owning to the limited space here, I cannot detail the dozens of other accomplishments that Hughes professionals made to our industry and the world. Just two of these include the venerable HS-376, the most purchased GEO satellite in history (another brainchild of Harold Rosen), and Thuraya, the first all digital processing GEO satellite that serves hand-held mobile subscribers. The hundred thousand or so of us Hughes professionals are proud to have been a part of the empire that Howard Hughes created. Many have moved on to contribute at other companies and in the government by demonstrating the Hughes brand of creative thinking and dedication to the program mission.