But on the design challenges that we had – there were numerous challenges.
One was we had started off had no idea how to get the data
to the ground from the – particularly from the radar.
And in those days it was not possible to store the data.
There was – tape recorders were not reliable,
and semiconductor memory was decades in the future.
So we elected to transmit the data to ground stations scattered around the world,
a total of about 13 of them.
And that was a major decision.
The next one was the antenna.
We had again no idea at the start what kind of antenna we should – we might use.
Fortunately, a couple of our people visited the National Research Council,
and there was a George Klein at the NRC
who had a design for an extendible tubular antenna or mast I think.
And that design – this tubular member – had quite – had much greater, of course,
bending strength than if it was just rolled out.
And that – of course it couldn’t – it wasn’t in any shape to fly on the satellite,
so it required a lot of engineering on the part of the De Havilland in Toronto
to produce this – what became known as STEM:
storable tubular [extendible] member.
And that solved the – our antenna problem.
Which as I say at the start, we had no idea.