“The early bird catches the worm.” Intelsat believed strongly in this proverb and nicknamed its first commercial communications satellite Intelsat I the “Early Bird.”

It was on this day, June 28th, in 1965 that the first commercial communications satellite, named Intelsat I, went live and paved the way for Satellite television.

Early Bird was built by the Hughes Aircraft Company, which is now called Boeing Satellite Systems, based on the satellite that the company had built for NASA. The satellite helped provide the first live television broadcast of a spacecraft splashdown when the Gemini 6 landed in December 1965.