Mariner 4 was launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida on November 28, 1964. It
became the first satellite to perform a successful fly-by of the planet Mars taking
the first close-up pictures of the planets surface and transmitting them to Earth
beginning on July 15, 1965. On December 21, 1967 communications with Mariner
4 were terminated.

.

The Telstar 1 AT&T Communications Satellite was launched on top of a Thor-
Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the first
television pictures, telephone calls, fax images and provided the first live
transatlantic television feed.  

The instrumental “Telstar" by The Tornados was the first single by
a British band to reach number on the the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. It
was released on August 17, 1962, five weeks after the launch of the
Telstar satellite.

Intelsat 1 F-1, known popularly as Early Bird (above), was the first
communications satellite developed and launched for commercial
use. It was launched on a Delta D rocket from Cape Canaveral,
Florida and positioned in geostationary orbit over the Atlantic. It
had a capacity of 240 telephone links or one television channel.The
satellite was originally Designed to last for 18 months, it was in use
for 3½ years, even being reactivated briefly to celebrate Intelsat’s
20th anniversary in 1984.

The Early Bird satellite was launched on a Delta
D rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.