Thank you for visiting the Project OSCAR website.  Please feel free to explore the site for historical information on the early beginnings of amateur radio in space!

Here is a great article on the first operational use of OSCAR-0 (the moon) as a communications relay!

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4217/ch2.htm

In fact, the book that this is from, “Beyond the Ionosphere,” edited by A. Butrica is a great source on the history of satellite communications.  The entire text (NASA SP-4217) can be read online for free here.

A full scale model of the original OSCAR satellite, built by Project OSCAR in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and later launched in 1961 has been put on display at the Smithsonian’s Udvar Hazy Facility.

Housed in the new James S. McDonnell Space Hangar, opened for the first time on November 1, 2004,The facility was recently toured by Project OSCAR members Cliff Buttschard K7RR, Emily Clarke W0EEC and Eric Christiansen KF4OTN when they attended the AMSAT Space Symposium in October 2004. Unfortunately the new exhibit was not on display at that time.

OSCAR was joined by the thermal mass model of PCsat and an engineering model of NUSAT 1, built by students at several Utah universities.

The full scale model of the original OSCAR was donated to the Smithsonian by Project OSCAR in 1980 and previously appeared in exhibit in the Air and Space museum.

Project OSCAR started in 1960 and was responsible for the construction of the first Amateur Radio Satellite OSCAR-1, that was successfully launched from Vandenberg AFB in California. OSCAR-1 orbited the earth for 22 days, transmitting the “HI” greeting you see in Morse Code above. Project OSCAR then went on to launch OSCAR-2, OSCAR-3 and OSCAR-4. Today, almost fifty years later, our mission is “to initiate and support activities that promote the Satellite Amateur Radio Hobby”. Our primary goal is to reach out and provide logistical support, training and in some cases equipment to amateur radio associations, schools and the public at large. We hope you enjoy your visit to our web site, and feel free to contact us if we can be of any assistance to you. 73!