ite communications, in 1962 paid NASA to launch its first Telstar satellite. Because that satellite, which operated in a fairly low orbit, was in range of any one receiving antenna for only a few minutes, a large network of such satellites would have been necessary for an operational system. Engineers from the American firm Hughes Aircraft, led by Harold Rosen, developed a design for a satellite that would operate in geostationary orbit. Aided by research support from NASA, the first successful geostationarysatellite, Syncom 2, was launched in 1 1963; it demonstrated the feasibility of the Hughes concept prior to commercial use.