The Draper Prize

Biographies

John R. Pierce was born in March of 1910 in Iowa. He received his doctorate at The California Institute of Technology. While working at AT&T Bell Laboratories, he designed and launched the now-famous Telstar 1, the world's first active communication satellite. During the 1950s, Pierce proposed the foundations for unmanned passive and active communication satellites. Though his ideas were initially resisted, Pierce was able to persuade NASA in 1960 to build and launch Echo. Echo was essentially a large aluminum sphere about 100 feet in diameter that acted like a mirror in space, bouncing radio waves from one ground-based station to another.

In 1971, he returned to the California Institute of Technology as professor of electrical engineering. Prior to his death in 2002, Pierce received many awards, including the National Medal of Science and many medals from other countries. In 1963, Pierce received the IEEE Edison Medal for "his pioneer work and leadership in satellite communications and for his stimulus and contributions to electron optics, travelling wave tube theory, and the control of noise in electron streams."

Harold A. Rosen was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1926. He earned his B.E. degree from Tulane University in 1947. A year later he was awarded the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the same Institute in 1951. Rosen began his career in 1948 with Raytheon Manufacturing Company. Rosen conceived and directed the construction of Syncom - the world's first synchronous communications satellite.

In 1976, Rosen was the first recipient of the L.M. Ericsson International Prize for outstanding contributions to telecommunications research and engineering. He has been presented with the Astronautics Engineer Award from the National Space Club, the Golden Plate Award at the American Academy of Achievement's "Gathering of the Great" in Texas, the Communications Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Rosen made communication satellites more commercially viable. Going against conventional wisdom, in 1963 Rosen designed and developed Syncom II, the first geosynchronous satellite. Orbiting some 22,300 miles above the Earth, Syncom II was accessible for continuous transmission of audiovisual signals. For the first time, widely separated areas could be served by communication signals relayed via a satellite pointed at a fixed ground station.

He served as Vice President of Engineering for Hughes Aircraft Company's Space and Communications Group, retiring in 1993. From 1993 to 1997 Rosen and his brother ran Rosen Motors, working on developing a hybrid motor vehicle that could generate and store energy. In 1998, he joined Boeing Satellite Systems as a consultant.

Communication Satellites

Much of today’s long-distance communication – including long-distance phone calls, satellite radio, television, and more – relies on satellites modeled on two pioneering systems launched in the 1960s. One, Telstar, was the first system to actively relay messages through space. Because signals lose much of their strength as they travel through the atmosphere, the Telstar satellites (and their descendants) gather messages and then re-broadcast them at a higher strength.

The second system, Syncom II, was the first to use a geostationary orbit – one that allows the satellite to circle at the same rate that the Earth rotates, so that it remains above a fixed point on the ground. This makes the satellite much easier to use, since users always know where it is – they don’t have to track it before sending or receiving a message.