Telstar 1 , which had ushered in a new age of the commercial use of technology , became a victim of technology during the Cold War . The day before Telstar 1 launched , a U.S. high-altitude nuclear bomb ( called Starfish Prime ) had energized the Earth 's Van Allen Belt where Telstar 1 went into orbit . This vast increase in a radiation belt , combined with subsequent high-altitude blasts , including a Soviet test in October , overwhelmed Telstar 's fragile transistors . It went out of service in November 1962 , after handling over 400 telephone , telegraph , facsimile and television transmissions . It was restarted by a workaround in early January 1963 . The additional radiation associated with its return to full sunlight once again caused a transistor failure , this time irreparably , and Telstar 1 went out of service on February 21 , 1963
Starfish Prime
Starfish Prime
Telstar