In 1965, the US Air Force and the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT launched two Lincoln Experimental Satellites (LES) into orbit around the Earth: LES-1 and LES-2. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

These were the first super-high-frequency satellites, using the X-band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

"Lincoln Laboratory’s space communications program after Project West Ford began in 1963 with a charter to build and demonstrate military space communications systems. The initial program objective was to build, launch, and field a LES and a LET [Lincoln Experimental Terminals] that would work together as a system and demonstrate practical military satellite communications," NASA's History Office explains of the project, which ha

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