Editing Courier 1B (section)

==Spacecraft==
Courier 1B was built by the Western Development Labs (WDL) division of [[Philco]], previously known as "Army Fort Monmouth Laboratories". Philco was bought by [[Ford Motor Company]], becoming part of its [[Ford Aerospace]] division, which was acquired by [[Loral Corporation]]. WDL then became part of [[Space Systems/Loral]] division of [[Loral Space & Communications]]. IT&T provided ground support equipment and Radiation, Inc, Melbourne, Florida, made the large dish ground antennas. Sonotone Corporation, Elmsford, New York developed the on-board power system for the satellite.

Courier 1B was a {{convert|225|kg}}, {{convert|129.5|cm}} diameter sphere, {{convert|135|kg}} of this was the electronic equipment payload. It carried four 2-W microwave FM (1700-1800&nbsp;MHz) transmitters and a 50-mW transistorized VHF beacon transmitter subsystem. It contained four solid-state receivers in the 1800-1900&nbsp;MHz microwave band. Five tape recorders were used to store data for later playback. Four of these were digital with a total capacity of 13.2&nbsp;Mb (4 minutes at 55&nbsp;kbit/s) each. One was an analog recorder with a 4-minute capacity and a range of 300 to 50,000&nbsp;Hz.<ref name="Display"/>

Four [[whip antenna]]s were mounted at 90° intervals along the equator of the sphere. It also held two [[microwave antenna]]s, a transistorized telemetry generator, a VHF [[diplexer]], and a command decoder. The transmitters and receivers were set up so two of each would be running at any given time, the others were on standby and could be switched in by ground command. The sphere was covered with 19,200 solar cells, charging nickel-cadmium batteries, providing 60 W power. It was the first satellite to use nickel–cadmium storage batteries.<ref name="Display"/>

The satellite had the capability to simultaneously transmit, receive, and store approximately 68,000 coded words per minute. It also had real-time communications mode, supporting a single half-duplex voice circuit. The mission was operated by two monitoring stations in New Jersey and Puerto Rico using special 8.5 meters of dish antennas.<ref name="Display">{{Cite web |url=https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1960-013A|title=Courier 1B: Display 1960-013A|date=27 February 2020|website=nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov|publisher=NASA|access-date=28 April 2020}} {{PD-notice}}</ref>