Hughes Aircraft Collections

This post updates and replaces the following: Hughes Aircraft Bibliography posted on 2/12/19 and Uplink–Hughes Communications Newsletter 1994-1998 posted on 6/23/20

University of Nevada Las Vegas

The UNLV Library has a significant collection of Hughes Aircraft documents and other material that are referenced at https://www.library.unlv.edu/speccol/finding-aids/MS-00485.pdf

Books About Howard Hughes 

Hughes:  The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters.  Richard Hack. New Millennium Press, 2001.

Howard Hughes Aviator. George J Marrett.  Naval Institute Press, 2004.

Howard Hughes H-4 “Hercules.”  Northrop Institute of Technology, Aviation History Library.  Historical Airplanes, 1962.  Many photos of the aircraft being transported from Culver City to Long Beach.

Howard Hughes and His Flying Boat.  Charles Barton.  Self published, revised edition 1998.

Howard Hughes, His Life and Madness. Donald L. Barlett & James B. Steele.  W. W. Norton & Company, 1979.

Seduction:  Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes Hollywood. Karina Longworth.  Custom House, 2018.

Books Relating To Hughes Aircraft

As I Remember:  A Walk Through My Years at Hughes Aircraft 1951-1997.  Scott Walker.  Hawthorne Publishing, 2010.

Call Me Pat:  The Autobiography of the Man Howard Hughes Chose to Lead Hughes Aircraft, Downing Company, 1993.

Hughes After Howard:  The Story of Hughes Aircraft Company.  D. Kenneth Richardson.  Sea-Hill Press, 2011.

The Origins of Satellite Communications. David J Whalen.  Smithsonian Institute Press, 2002.  Excellent account of Syncom development.

Something New Under the Sun:  Satellites and the Beginning of the Space Age.  Helen Gavaghan.  Copernicus, 1998.  Detailed account of the Syncom development.

The Rise and Fall of Comsat.  David J. Whalen.  Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.  Open Skies, Anik, COMSTAR and SBS.

NASA and the Space Industry.  Joan Lisa Bromberg.  Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.  Covers Syncom and the NASA Ka-band satellite controversy.

Paving the Way for Apollo 11.  David M. Harland.  Springer Praxis Publishing, 2009.  Surveyor I description and mission.

To Reach the High Frontier, A History of U. S. Launch Vehicles.  Roger Launius, Dennis R Jenkins Editors University Press of Kentucky, 2002.  Great source of historical data on launch vehicles.

Communication Satellites Fourth Edition.  Donald H. Martin, Aerospace Press AIAA 2000.  Hughes satellite data from Syncom to HS-601.

Mission to Jupiter:  A History of the Galileo Project NASA SP 2007-4231.  Michael Meltzer 2007.  

Mission Jupiter, The Spectacular Journey of the Galileo Spacecraft.  Daniel Fischer Copernicus Books 2001.

Other Documents

Dynamic Analysis and Design of the Synchronous Communication Satellite, D. D. Williams. Engineering Division Hughes Aircraft Company TM-649 May 1960.

SYNCOM Engineering Report Volume I, NASA TR R-233. Syncom Projects Office Goddard Space Flight Center.  March 1966. Syncom II description and mission.

SYNCOM Engineering Report Volume II, NASA TR R-252. Syncom Projects Office Goddard Space Flight Center.  April 1967. Syncom III description and mission.

NASA Compendium of Satellite Communications Programs, NASA TM X-751-73-178.  Goddard Space Flight Center, June 1973.

Analyses Related to the Hughes Gyrostat System, A. J. Iorillo https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/Sunshine2019/SC-2018-00001_C05105855.pdf

Fuel Slosh Energy Dissipation On a Spinning Body.  John T. Neer,  Jerome O. Salvatore.  Hughes Aircraft Report SCG 20027R February 1972.

Pioneer Venus.  NASA SP-461.  Richard Fimmel, Lawrence Colin, Eric Burgess, 1983.

Galileo:  Exploration of Jupiter’s System, NASA SP-479.  C. M. Yeates, et al, 1985.

U. S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns With the People’s Republic of China. Volume II Satellite Launches in the PRC:  Hughes. Report of the Select Committee on U. S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns With the Peoples Republic of China, May 1999. (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851-1-2.pdf)

COMSAT Technical Review 1971-1995 (http://www.comsatlegacy.com/CTR.html)

The Intelsat IV Spacecraft. Launch and Orbital Injection of Intelsat IV Satellites.  The Intelsat IV Communications System. Volume 2 No 2 Fall 1972. 

Intelsat IVA Transmission System Design J. Dicks, M. Brown Jr. Volume 5 No 1 Spring 1975

The COMSTAR Program.  The COMSTAR Satellite System.  Volume 7 No 1 Spring 1977

MARISAT A Maritime Satellite Communications System. Volume 7 No. 2 Fall 1977.

Intelsat IV In-Orbit Liquid Slosh Tests and Problems In the Theoretical Analysis of the Data V. J. Slabinski Volume 8 No. 1 Spring 1978.

Summary of the SBS Satellite Communications Performance Specifications G. G. Churan, W. E. Leavitt.  Notes Volume 11 No. 2 Fall 1981.

Intelsat VI The Communications System. Volume 20 No. 2 Fall 1990

Intelsat VI Spacecraft Design.  Volume 21 No. 1 Spring 1991. 

INTELSAT VI From Spacecraft to Satellite Operations.  Volume 21 No. 2 Fall 1991.

INTELSAT VI:  System and Applications.  Volume 22 No. 1 Spring 1992

INTELSAT 603 Reboost.  S. B. Bennett Volume 22 No. 1 Spring 1992. 

SSTDMA in the INTELSAT VI System.  Volume 22 No. 2 Fall 1992.  

Websites

Hughes Industrial Historic District (http://www.hugheshistoricdistrict.com/howard-hughes/) Includes history of Hughes Aircraft, visual tour of remaining buildings, timeline of life of Howard Hughes, Hughes H-1 Flying Boat (Spruce Goose) including video of flight, Historical Development Photos, and a bibliography

Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields: California, Western Los Angeles Area, PaulFreeman (http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_LA_W.htm#hughes) Many photos and information about the Hughes Culver City Airfield.

Historic American Engineering Record Hughes Aircraft Company HAER CA-174 (https://cdn.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca2100/ca2172/data/ca2172data.pdf)  Document describing Hughes Culver City facility including development of facility, history of Hughes Aircraft.

Hughes Aircraft Company, 6775 Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA Photos From Survey HAER CA-174. (https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.ca2172.photos?st=gallery&c=40)

Santa Barbara Research Center History https://sbrc-sbrs.com

Newsletters

Uplink Hughes Communications Newsletter 1994-1998

https://web.archive.org/web/19990129052113/http://www.hcisat.com/uplink/archive/archive.html

TACSAT Preview—Tony Iorillo

Recently I contacted Tony and asked about the preliminaries that led up to the TACSAT contract.  He responded and covered a lot more ground.  I thought his response merited posting on our website.  Jack Fisher

As I recall, TACSAT was like any other SAMSO program.  They put out pre-RFP notice in 1966 that they were interested in buying a satellite with the specs which Dick described¹.  Our Space Division marketing team followed the development of TACSAT specs very carefully.  There was another contemporaneous procurement SAMSO was working on that we also followed carefully—the DSP ballistic missile early warning satellite.
Ultimately, we had to decide which program to go after because we did not have the resources to compete vigorously for both.  Having recently failed to beat TRW for both Intelsat III and a classified program for the NRO, we needed a win.

Paul Visher, our assistant division manager and Bud Franklin, our manager of Advanced Projects, chose TACSAT as the target.  As Dick Brandes wrote¹, they believed that the TACSAT satellite configuration was more representative of future program targets than the peculiar DSP configuration.  Paul foresaw the HS318 ( our “green” program ) and the  Intelsat IV programs which were to evolve shortly after the start of TACSAT in 1967.  So, TRW won the DSP contract.  We won TACSAT.  In 1967 and 1968, even before TACSAT was launched, we used the TACSAT win as our relevant related experience. 

With a large satellite configuration in hand, we beat TRW, and others, for the HS-318 and Intelsat IV contracts.  These wins came just in time to prevent having to lay off the Surveyor and Intelsat II teams whose programs were ending.  Even TACSAT was to end in a year.  Thanks to Mr, Hyland’s foresight and faith, the bulk of these people were carried for many months entirely on company funding
   
Bob Roney became our new Space Division manager shortly before the wins were announced in 1968.  At an all hands meeting, the day he took over, Bob informed us that our division had but a 60-day backlog.  Dick Brandes and I still recall the tension felt by all in the room.

In 1970, with both programs underway, we then had enough stable business to finally become a Group, and Bud Wheelon joined us as Group Executive.  The rest is history pretty much as Steve Dorfman wrote².  He, too, was limited by security restrictions to paint a complete picture.  For the record, in 1972, we beat TRW again for the SDS relay satellite contract.
Twenty years later, with our new HS 601 design, we were to beat TRW and GE for the AUSSAT and Navy UHF Follow-on contracts.

During the TACSAT years. In 1964, Paul Visher allocated IR&D funds for me to complete the analytical work deriving the stability rules for dual-spin satellites, Hughes Gyrostats.  The next year, Bernie Burns and I built some small spinning models which were enough to convince management that the analyses were correct. Fortunately, Doctors Puckett, Roney and Adler were steeped enough in spin dynamics to agree.So, when TACSAT came along my task was to build demonstration models elaborate enough to convince SAMSO and Aerospace management.  John Neer wrote about this work³.

     We also hired UCLA Professor Peter Likens, to study my analyses, and to work with Dr. Tino Mingori of Aerospace to promulgate the results. When we submitted our proposal, the novelty of the design was not an issue with the technical evaluators.  And, as Dick Brandes wrote, our proposal was very cost competitive because we valued the future prospects¹.  Peter went on to become President of Lehigh university and, later, the University of Arizona.

      After we won TACSAT, I worked on both the HS318 “green” program and Intelsat IV proposals.  Bill Bakemeyer was the “green” proposal manager and Al Owens was the Intelsat IV proposal manager.  I was in charge of the Technical Volumes and Executive Summaries for both.  The proposals were sequential, with brief overlaps, so that I could do both.  I used many of the same staff.  For example, Al Wittman was the principal Design Integration leader for both.  The “green” program was much more demanding.  It was our first entry into the operational world of satellite reconnaissance.  And it was not a geostationary orbit mission.  The satellite was a multi-mission vehicle carrying an electro-optical precision pointed payload and a very wide band ELINT payload with large steerable receive and downlink antennas.  We also designed and built the elaborate ground data processing segments for both payloads along with the satellite command and control station.  The Surveyor guys were perfect for the job.

Jim Cloud was the program manager, aided by Bill Bakemeyer, Shel Shallon, Warren Nichols, Frank Wolf and many other Surveyor veterans. Their contract performance was spectacular. The satellites and the ground segments worked as planned and it was done on schedule and pretty close to our budget.  The program was still going when I retired.  Intelsat IV was a relatively straightforward next generation Comsat.  I then went on to manage the SDS relay satellite proposal, our “yellow” program.  This time I stayed on as deputy to Roger Clapp until the first launch.

Reference 1. TACSAT, Dick Brandes

Reference 2.  A (Very) Short History of the Space and Communication Activities of Hughes Aircraft Company–Steve Dorfman

Reference 3. On the Gyrostat Road, John Neer