Galaxy 1 was the first in a line of

Galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System ...

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...

s launched by

Hughes Communications Hughes Network Systems, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar. It is headquartered in Germantown, Maryland and provides satellite internet service. HughesNet has over 1.3 million subscribers in the Americas. History Hughes Communications ...

in 1983. It helped fill a hole in satellite broadcasting bandwidth created by the loss of RCA's Satcom 3 in 1979. Unlike satellite owners

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

and

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...

, Hughes did not lease time on their transponders in the fashion of a common carrier, but instead sold transponders outright to content providers. This created a stable lineup of content attractive enough for cable providers to dedicate

Earth station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fr ...

receivers to it full-time. Among the services on Galaxy 1 by mid-1984: HBO,

Cinemax Cinemax is an American pay television, cable, and satellite television network owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Developed as a companion "maxi-pay" service complementing the offerings shown on parent ...

The Movie Channel The Movie Channel (TMC) is an American premium television network owned by Showtime Networks, a subsidiary of Paramount Global operated through its Media Networks unit. The network's programming mainly features first-run theatrically released ...

, Showtime, The

Disney Channel Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Comp ...

, TBS, CNN,

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, and

The Nashville Network The Nashville Network, usually referred to as TNN, was an American country music-oriented cable television network. Programming included music videos, taped concerts, movies, game shows, syndicated programs, and numerous talk shows. On Septembe ...

Retirement of Galaxy 1

In 1992, Galaxy 1 was replaced by

Galaxy 5 Galaxy 5 was a communications satellite operated by PanAmSat from 1992 to 2005. It spent most of its operational life at an orbital location of 176° E. Galaxy 5 was launched on March 14, 1992, with an Atlas launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air ...

as the predominant cable television signal carrier, when a majority of satellite television services were relocated onto that satellite. It was originally slated for retirement in 1992 and replacement by

Galaxy 1R A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

, but the replacement was lost during launch on 22 August 1992, due to a failure of the booster rocket's second stage Centaur engine; it was eventually replaced in 1994 by Galaxy 1RR.

Home Box Office

The HBO (Home Box Office) signal on

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

23 of Galaxy 1 was interrupted during the infamous Captain Midnight attack on 27 April 1986. The attack was directed at HBO for their adoption of the

Videocipher VideoCipher is a brand name of analog scrambling and de-scrambling equipment for cable and satellite television invented primarily to enforce Television receive-only (TVRO) satellite equipment to only receive TV programming on a subscription basis ...

system and for charging high prices for access to the HBO and

services with that system.

References

Communications satellites Spacecraft launched in 1983 Satellites using the HS-376 bus {{US-spacecraft-stub

Retirement of Galaxy 1

Home Box Office

See also

References